The Santa Justa Lift was my favorite attraction in the city of Lisbon Portugal, so much so that it warranted its own post.
Its a beautiful cast iron elevator designed in the neo-gothic architecture style and dates back to the begining of the 19th century. I just stumbled upon it while walking around and thought that it's architecture and design were really quite beautiful.
I also liked its location and found it to be quite interactive in a way; definitely a cool spot to photograph.
This is me trying to be artistic about it.
It costs money to ride the elevator (around 5€ I believe) and there were long line ups to do so when I was there. It didn't appear to run continuously throughout the day and I believe there is a schedule with set departure times. Don't quote me on it but keep it in mind that you might have to plan your visit in advance if want to take a ride.
I generally don't waste time on vacation waiting in lines for mundane things like riding elevators (even really cool ones like this) and I generally don't schedule events unless its something that I really "must do."
That being said, I didn't go inside the lift and unfortunately I don't have any pictures of the interior. That doesn't mean that I didn't go onto the platform though.
The tower stands 45 meters tall and takes passengers from the Baixa district on the lower level up to the ruins of the Carmo Monastery above.
If you walk up to the ruins like I did then you can access the platform from there for free to get some amazing panoramic views of the city.
The platform above the area where I was cost 1.50€ to access, but below that its completely free. I just walked in to the nearly empty viewpoint and was totally satified with what I saw.
I actually didn’t have the option of going any higher at that point anyway. There was wrought-iron staircase inside the platform but it happened to be closed for the evening and roped off for the public. Maybe get there a little earlier if it's something that you want to do or maybe there was another access point that I wasn't aware of?
So basically, I wasn't at the very top of the tower. In the photos you can see that there are two more floors above where I was standing.
Still, the view was pretty awesome where I was nonetheless.
I brought my wife back to this location in the evening but for some reason she didn't come onto the platform with me and chose to hang around the ruins and play on her phone 🙃. I can't understand women at times.
An interesting tidbit of information according to the lifts webpage, is that it can take 20 people up but only 15 people down. It doesn't say anything about why the discrepancy though. We will all just have to wonder and speculate on that I suppose.
Anyway, I stayed up there alone for about 15 minutes taking pictures and taking in the views before heading back down to where my wife was waiting.
The sun had just set by then so it was time to move on and start working our way back to our hotel.
