Alcântara is the working river, the part Lisbon kept rough on purpose. Under three kilometres, threaded between a printworks and a marina, all of it in the shadow of the great red bridge.
Start at LX Factory — a 19th-century textile-and-printing complex now given over to studios and cafés, the old machinery left where it stood. Walk the main lane before you spend anything. Then Ler Devagar, the bookshop in the old print hall, the presses still bolted down and a paper bird flying off a bicycle near the ceiling. Up to the gallery for the full height of it.
South toward the water and the Ponte 25 de Abril, the 1966 bridge that shares its engineers and its red with San Francisco's. Pilar 7 lifts you up inside the seventh pillar to the deck; underneath, stand where the span meets the bank and listen to the traffic hum on the grating above.
Then the reward: Doca de Santo Amaro, the marina under the deck, warehouses turned to waterside tables. A drink with the masts in front and the bridge overhead. End east at the Museu do Oriente, a converted cod-warehouse, and the river from its café.
