Roots EarthAll cities

Portugal · Europe

Roots Earth in Lisbon: audio stories about 52 places

Roots Earth has audio stories about 52 places in Lisbon, Portugal, in Europe. The Lisbon stories are in all seven Roots Earth languages: English, German, Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch and Albanian. The app needs no account: open Lisbon, pick a place on the city's map of places and play. Download a city's audio, then it plays without a connection. The stories are written by local people.

The 52 places are listed below in the order the app shows them, and again further down with their coordinates. The lists were taken from the Roots Earth catalogue on 15 September 2026.

Published 16 September 2026. Markdown: lisbon.md

The 52 places in Lisbon with audio stories

In the order the app shows them.

  1. Belém Tower
  2. Jerónimos Monastery
  3. São Jorge Castle
  4. Praça do Comércio
  5. Lisbon Cathedral
  6. Monument of the Discoveries
  7. Santa Justa Lift
  8. Rossio Square
  9. Rua Augusta Arch
  10. Alfama
  11. Church of Santa Engrácia (National Pantheon)
  12. Carmo Convent
  13. Church of São Roque
  14. Calouste Gulbenkian Museum
  15. National Museum of the Azulejo
  16. National Museum of Ancient Art
  17. National Coach Museum
  18. Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology (MAAT)
  19. Lisbon Oceanarium
  20. Ajuda National Palace
  21. Estrela Basilica
  22. São Bento Palace
  23. 25 de Abril Bridge
  24. Christ the King Sanctuary
  25. Vasco da Gama Bridge
  26. Parque das Nações
  27. Avenida da Liberdade
  28. Eduardo VII Park
  29. Chiado
  30. Bairro Alto
  31. Glória Funicular
  32. Restauradores Square
  33. Águas Livres Aqueduct
  34. Belém Cultural Center
  35. Fado Museum
  36. Time Out Market (Mercado da Ribeira)
  37. Feira da Ladra
  38. Mouraria
  39. Graça
  40. LX Factory
  41. Pastéis de Belém
  42. Café A Brasileira
  43. A Ginjinha
  44. Jardim da Estrela
  45. Prazeres Cemetery
  46. Campo de Ourique
  47. Príncipe Real
  48. Lisbon Tropical Botanical Garden
  49. Monsanto Forest Park
  50. Bica Funicular
  51. Estádio da Luz
  52. Estádio José Alvalade

Is there an audio guide for Belém Tower?

Yes. Belém Tower has its audio stories in the Roots Earth app: a short introduction and a deeper story, in English, German, Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch and Albanian.

It is place 1 of the 52 Lisbon places in the app, at 38.69167, -9.21611. Every one of the other 51 places in the list above has the same two stories.

Roots Earth is not a guided tour: you choose the place on the city's map of places and play its story yourself.

How to use Roots Earth in Lisbon

Open Roots Earth and choose Lisbon. The city has its own map of places with all 52 of them on it. Tap the place you are standing in front of, or any other, and play its short introduction or its deeper story. You decide what to listen to and in which order.

You can listen in English, German, Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch and Albanian, and there is no account. Download a city's audio, then it plays without a connection.

In full

All 52 places in Lisbon, in the app's order, with their coordinates.

All 52 places in Lisbon, with coordinates

Every place below has a short introduction and a deeper story in the Roots Earth app, in English, German, Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch and Albanian. The names, the coordinates (latitude, longitude) and the one line descriptions are the app's own catalogue values of 15 September 2026; a place without a line here has none that this page can print.

1. Belém Tower

Coordinates
38.69167, -9.21611
In one line
A fortified Manueline tower of pale lioz limestone, built from 1514 to 1520 to guard the Tagus for King Manuel I. Carved ropes, armillary spheres and a stone rhinoceros adorn what is now a UNESCO-listed emblem of the Age of Discoveries.

2. Jerónimos Monastery

Coordinates
38.69778, -9.20611
In one line
A vast Manueline monastery begun in 1501 under King Manuel I and funded by the spice trade. Vasco da Gama lies buried inside, and its carved cloister ranks among the great achievements of Portuguese architecture.

3. São Jorge Castle

Coordinates
38.71389, -9.13361
In one line
Moorish ramparts crowning Lisbon's highest hill, taken by King Afonso Henriques in 1147 and later transformed into a medieval royal palace.

4. Praça do Comércio

Coordinates
38.7075, -9.13639
In one line
Lisbon's grand riverfront square, laid out after the 1755 earthquake on the site of the destroyed Ribeira royal palace. Yellow Pombaline arcades frame the bronze equestrian statue of King José I, with the Tagus lapping at its marble steps.

5. Lisbon Cathedral

Coordinates
38.70972, -9.13306
In one line
The fortress-like Sé, begun in 1147 on the site of the city's main mosque after the Christian reconquest. Lisbon's oldest church layers Romanesque towers, a Gothic ambulatory and Roman ruins excavated beneath its cloister.

6. Monument of the Discoveries

Coordinates
38.69361, -9.20572
In one line
A 56-metre concrete and stone prow rising over the Tagus at Belém, completed in 1960 for the five hundredth anniversary of Henry the Navigator's death. Thirty-three carved figures of explorers, monarchs and artists face the sea.

7. Santa Justa Lift

Coordinates
38.71222, -9.13944
In one line
A wrought-iron neo-Gothic elevator built between 1900 and 1902 by engineer Raoul Mesnier du Ponsard, linking the streets of Baixa to Largo do Carmo above. Its wood-panelled cabins and rooftop terrace make it Lisbon's most ornate shortcut.

8. Rossio Square

Coordinates
38.71389, -9.13944
In one line
Lisbon's main square since the Middle Ages, rebuilt in Pombaline style after the 1755 earthquake. Wave-patterned mosaic paving, bronze fountains and the column of Dom Pedro IV front the neoclassical Dona Maria II National Theatre.

9. Rua Augusta Arch

Coordinates
38.7084, -9.1368
In one line
A triumphal arch completed in 1875 to celebrate Lisbon's rebirth after the 1755 earthquake. Crowned by Glory honouring Valor and Genius, it frames the passage between Rua Augusta and the riverfront Praça do Comércio.

10. Alfama

Coordinates
38.71222, -9.13
In one line
Lisbon's oldest quarter, a Moorish-patterned maze of stairways and alleys tumbling from São Jorge Castle to the Tagus. Largely spared by the 1755 earthquake, it remains the cradle of fado and the city's most atmospheric neighbourhood.

11. Church of Santa Engrácia (National Pantheon)

Coordinates
38.715, -9.125
In one line
A baroque church begun in 1682 and completed only in 1966, now serving as Portugal's National Pantheon. Beneath its white dome lie presidents, writers and the fado singer Amália Rodrigues, alongside cenotaphs honouring the great navigators.

12. Carmo Convent

Coordinates
38.71222, -9.14
In one line
The roofless Gothic church of a convent founded in 1389 by the warrior Nuno Álvares Pereira. Its bare arches, open to the sky since the 1755 earthquake, frame Lisbon's most haunting ruin and house an archaeological museum.

13. Church of São Roque

Coordinates
38.71361, -9.14361
In one line
A plain-fronted Jesuit church begun in 1555 that conceals one of Europe's richest interiors, including the Chapel of Saint John the Baptist, assembled in Rome, blessed by the pope and shipped to Lisbon in pieces.

14. Calouste Gulbenkian Museum

Coordinates
38.73667, -9.15417
In one line
A low modernist museum set in lush gardens, opened in 1969 to house the roughly six thousand works gathered by Armenian oil magnate Calouste Gulbenkian, from Egyptian sculpture and Islamic art to Rembrandt and René Lalique.

15. National Museum of the Azulejo

Coordinates
38.72444, -9.11389
In one line
Portugal's national tile museum fills the former Madre de Deus convent, founded by Queen Leonor in 1509. Five centuries of azulejos culminate in a vast tiled panorama showing Lisbon as it looked before the 1755 earthquake.

16. National Museum of Ancient Art

Coordinates
38.70444, -9.16167
In one line
Portugal's flagship art museum, founded in 1884 in the seventeenth-century Palácio Alvor-Pombal above the river. Its more than forty thousand objects include the Panels of Saint Vincent, Bosch's Temptations of Saint Anthony and the golden Belém Monstrance.

17. National Coach Museum

Coordinates
38.69778, -9.19972
In one line
The world's foremost collection of royal carriages, founded by Queen Amélia in 1905 in the old riding school of Belém. Gilded Baroque coaches, including three sent to dazzle the Pope in 1716, now fill a striking modern hall.

18. Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology (MAAT)

Coordinates
38.69591, -9.19464
In one line
A low white wave of a building on the Belém riverfront, opened in 2016 to Amanda Levete's design. The museum pairs contemporary art, architecture and technology with the brick turbine halls of the 1909 Tejo Power Station.

19. Lisbon Oceanarium

Coordinates
38.7635, -9.0937
In one line
One of Europe's largest indoor aquariums, built for Expo 98 on the Parque das Nações waterfront. Around its five-million-litre central tank, four habitats recreate the coasts of the Atlantic, Antarctic, Pacific and Indian Oceans.

20. Ajuda National Palace

Coordinates
38.70759, -9.19833
In one line
Lisbon's neoclassical royal palace, begun in 1795 after fire destroyed the wooden court residence on this hill. Home to Portugal's last kings, it preserves their state rooms intact and, since 2022, displays the crown jewels.

21. Estrela Basilica

Coordinates
38.71316, -9.16056
In one line
A gleaming white late-Baroque basilica whose great dome rises over western Lisbon, built between 1779 and 1790 to fulfil a vow by Queen Maria I. It was the first church in the world dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

22. São Bento Palace

Coordinates
38.7125, -9.15361
In one line
The seat of Portugal's parliament, housed in a former Benedictine monastery founded in 1598. A grand neoclassical facade, columned portico and monumental staircase were added after 1834, when the dissolved convent became the home of national politics.

23. 25 de Abril Bridge

Coordinates
38.68917, -9.17694
In one line
A vast suspension bridge over the Tagus, opened in 1966 and painted the same colour as the Golden Gate. Renamed for the revolution of 25 April 1974, it carries six lanes of traffic above and trains on a lower deck.

24. Christ the King Sanctuary

Coordinates
38.67861, -9.17134
In one line
A 28-metre statue of Christ with open arms, raised on an 82-metre pedestal above Almada in 1959. Built to fulfil a wartime vow after Portugal was spared the Second World War, it faces Lisbon across the Tagus.

25. Vasco da Gama Bridge

Coordinates
38.762, -9.043
In one line
Europe's longest bridge at its opening in 1998, stretching more than 12 kilometres of roadway and viaduct across the Tagus estuary. Built for Expo 98, it honours the 500th anniversary of Vasco da Gama's sea route to India.

26. Parque das Nações

Coordinates
38.768, -9.094
In one line
Lisbon's newest district, raised on former industrial docklands for the Expo 98 world exposition. Riverside promenades link Santiago Calatrava's Oriente Station, the Oceanarium and a cable car in a showcase of contemporary Portuguese architecture and urban life.

27. Avenida da Liberdade

Coordinates
38.72028, -9.14583
In one line
Lisbon's grand tree-lined boulevard, laid out between 1879 and 1886 on the model of the Champs-Élysées. Ninety metres wide, it climbs from Restauradores to Praça Marquês de Pombal past luxury boutiques, grand hotels and mosaic pavements.

28. Eduardo VII Park

Coordinates
38.72833, -9.15278
In one line
A 26-hectare hillside park crowning the Avenida da Liberdade axis, renamed in honour of King Edward VII of Britain after his 1903 visit. Clipped hedge parterres frame one of Lisbon's great viewpoints, sweeping down to the Tagus.

29. Chiado

Coordinates
38.71056, -9.14222
In one line
Lisbon's elegant literary quarter, where the Bertrand bookshop has traded since 1747 and poets once argued in Café A Brasileira. Rebuilt by architect Álvaro Siza Vieira after a devastating 1988 fire, it remains the city's cultural heart.

30. Bairro Alto

Coordinates
38.71222, -9.145
In one line
A sixteenth-century grid of narrow lanes above central Lisbon, first planned in the 1500s as Vila Nova de Andrade. Quiet and laundry-hung by day, after dark it becomes Portugal's most famous concentration of bars, restaurants and fado houses.

31. Glória Funicular

Coordinates
38.71611, -9.14278
In one line
A nineteenth-century funicular linking Praça dos Restauradores with the Bairro Alto viewpoint of São Pedro de Alcântara. Engineer Raoul Mesnier du Ponsard opened the 275-meter line in 1885, and it was declared a National Monument in 2002.

32. Restauradores Square

Coordinates
38.71583, -9.14167
In one line
A broad square at the foot of Avenida da Liberdade, centered on a 30-meter obelisk raised in 1886 to honor the conspirators who restored Portuguese independence from Spain in 1640. Palácio Foz and the Art Deco Éden theater frame it.

33. Águas Livres Aqueduct

Coordinates
38.72889, -9.16917
In one line
An eighteenth-century aqueduct that carried spring water some 14 kilometers into Lisbon, striding across the Alcântara valley on 35 stone arches, the tallest 65 meters high. Commissioned by King João V in 1731, it survived the 1755 earthquake virtually unscathed.

34. Belém Cultural Center

Coordinates
38.69528, -9.20861
In one line
A vast modern arts complex in pale limestone beside the Jerónimos Monastery, built for Portugal's 1992 European presidency by architects Vittorio Gregotti and Manuel Salgado. Its auditoriums, exhibition halls and contemporary art museum anchor Lisbon's cultural life.

35. Fado Museum

Coordinates
38.71113, -9.12762
In one line
A museum devoted to Lisbon's signature song, housed in a former nineteenth-century water-pumping station at the edge of Alfama. Since 1998 it has gathered recordings, instruments, paintings and biographies tracing fado from dockside taverns to UNESCO recognition.

36. Time Out Market (Mercado da Ribeira)

Coordinates
38.70694, -9.14556
In one line
Lisbon's historic riverside market hall, open since 1882, now shared between a traditional fresh-food market and the Time Out Market, a curated food hall where the city's best-known chefs cook side by side.

37. Feira da Ladra

Coordinates
38.715, -9.12472
In one line
Lisbon's legendary flea market, held on Campo de Santa Clara every Tuesday and Saturday. Documented under its present name since 1610 and traced to a thirteenth-century fair, it trades in antiques, junk and everything between.

38. Mouraria

Coordinates
38.71583, -9.13583
In one line
The hillside quarter where Lisbon's Muslims lived after the Christian conquest of 1147, and where fado grew up in the taverns around Rua do Capelão. Today it is the city's most multicultural neighbourhood.

39. Graça

Coordinates
38.71806, -9.1275
In one line
A hilltop village within Lisbon, gathered around an Augustinian convent founded in 1271. Its terraces hold two of the city's best-loved viewpoints, and tram 28 climbs through its main square on every run.

40. LX Factory

Coordinates
38.70361, -9.17861
In one line
A creative village packed into a vast textile factory complex from 1846 in Alcântara, reborn in 2008 with studios, restaurants, a Sunday market and Ler Devagar, a bookshop in an old print shop that also serves as a gallery and cultural space, all beneath the 25 de Abril Bridge.

41. Pastéis de Belém

Coordinates
38.6975, -9.20361
In one line
The pastry house that has baked Lisbon's original custard tarts since 1837, working from a secret recipe bought from the monks of the Jerónimos Monastery. It sells more than twenty thousand warm pastéis every day.

42. Café A Brasileira

Coordinates
38.71069, -9.14205
In one line
A Chiado coffee house opened in 1905 to sell Brazilian beans, which became the haunt of Fernando Pessoa and Lisbon's modernist generation. A bronze Pessoa has kept a seat on its terrace since 1988.

43. A Ginjinha

Coordinates
38.71472, -9.13917
In one line
A doorway-sized bar on Largo de São Domingos that has poured ginjinha, Lisbon's sour-cherry liqueur, since 1840. Drinkers take the shot standing on the square, choosing it with or without the brandy-soaked cherries.

44. Jardim da Estrela

Coordinates
38.71417, -9.16028
In one line
A romantic English-style garden of 4. 6 hectares opposite the Estrela Basilica, opened in 1852. Locals come for the duck lake, the 1884 wrought-iron bandstand, the library kiosk and shaded benches under jacarandas and old cedars.

45. Prazeres Cemetery

Coordinates
38.71361, -9.17139
In one line
Lisbon's grand western cemetery, opened in 1833 after a cholera epidemic. Twelve hectares of cypress-lined streets hold the mausoleums of prime ministers, painters and fado singers, including the Palmela vault, often called Europe's largest private mausoleum.

46. Campo de Ourique

Coordinates
38.715, -9.167
In one line
A grid-planned residential quarter that works like a small town within Lisbon, with its own market hall, shops and cafés. Fernando Pessoa spent his final years here, and tram 28 begins its famous run at its edge.

47. Príncipe Real

Coordinates
38.71694, -9.14861
In one line
An elegant nineteenth-century quarter around a romantic garden square laid out in 1853, where a vast Mexican cedar spreads its crown over an iron trellis. Antique dealers, kiosk cafés and a Saturday organic market keep it humming.

48. Lisbon Tropical Botanical Garden

Coordinates
38.6984, -9.2036
In one line
A seven-hectare scientific garden beside Jerónimos Monastery, founded by royal decree in 1906 to study the plants of Portugal's colonies. Palms, cycads and roaming peacocks now shade a quiet retreat with a complicated imperial past.

49. Monsanto Forest Park

Coordinates
38.74, -9.18653
In one line
Lisbon's man-made forest, planted from 1934 onward on eroded farmland across roughly 1,000 hectares of the Monsanto hills. Locals call it the lung of the city and come for its trails, picnic parks and sweeping viewpoints.

50. Bica Funicular

Coordinates
38.70861, -9.14694
In one line
A canary-yellow funicular that has hauled Lisboetas up the steep Rua da Bica de Duarte Belo since 1892. Designed by Raoul Mesnier du Ponsard, the Ascensor da Bica is both a national monument and the city's most photographed street scene.

51. Estádio da Luz

Coordinates
38.7527, -9.1847
In one line
Benfica's 68,100-seat home ground, opened in 2003 and known as the Stadium of Light. It staged the Euro 2004 final and two Champions League finals, and an eagle named Vitória circles the stands before every home match.

52. Estádio José Alvalade

Coordinates
38.76111, -9.16083
In one line
Sporting Clube de Portugal's home since 2003, designed by Tomás Taveira and famous for its once-multicoloured mosaic of seats. The 52,000-seat arena hosted a Euro 2004 semi-final and saw Cristiano Ronaldo's farewell match for the club.

Roots Earth in short

Roots Earth has audio stories about 5,665 places in 130 cities, 25 countries and 6 regions, written by local people.

  • No account
  • Download a city's audio, then it plays without a connection
  • Audio stories in English and German in every city, and in Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch and Albanian in 126 of the 130 cities

Roots Earth for Android is available on Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rootsearth.app.