Praça do Comércio

Terreiro do Paço: the palace that stood here

Until 1755 this was the Terreiro do Paço, the palace yard, and the name is still what Lisbon calls the square, the Metro station and the ferry terminal. King Manuel I built the Ribeira Palace on the riverbank here in the early sixteenth century, moving the court down from the castle hill to the water where the trade from India and Brazil came in. The palace held the royal library, the archive of the discoveries and the Casa da Índia, the office that ran the spice trade.

On the morning of 1 November 1755, All Saints' Day, the earthquake brought the palace down, the tsunami that followed came over the riverfront and the fires burned what stood. The square you walk across is the fill laid over the ruins.

Pombal, Eugénio dos Santos and the U-shaped square

Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, the Marquis of Pombal, ran the rebuild for King José I and gave the job of the new square to the military engineer Eugénio dos Santos. His plan was a rectangle of 175 by 175 metres, about 30,600 square metres, open to the river on the south and closed on the other three sides by uniform arcaded buildings with a tower at each river corner. The buildings were to house the customs, the exchange and the ministries, which is why the square was renamed Praça do Comércio: the crown was telling its trading partners that Lisbon was back in business. The arcades still hold ministries, which is why so many of the ground-floor doors are shut.

The bronze equestrian statue in the centre is King José I by Joaquim Machado de Castro, installed in 1775 on the twentieth anniversary of the earthquake and the first bronze cast in Portugal on that scale; the king faces the river, and the Marquis's medallion on the pedestal was removed after his fall and put back in 1833. The Cais das Colunas, the two marble pillars in the water at the bottom of the square, are the ceremonial landing stage where heads of state stepped ashore; the tide covers the lower steps twice a day.

The arch, 1873, and the regicide of 1908

The Arco da Rua Augusta was planned in 1759 as a bell tower and finished only in 1873, by which time it had become a triumphal arch. Célestin Anatole Calmels carved the group on top, Glory crowning Genius and Valour, and Victor Bastos the figures on the columns: the Marquis of Pombal, Vasco da Gama, Viriato and Nuno Álvares Pereira, with the Tagus and the Douro reclining below. The Latin inscription reads, in Turismo de Lisboa's translation, 'The Virtues of the Greatest'. Its top was opened to the public on 9 August 2013.

On 1 February 1908 King Carlos I and the Crown Prince Luís Filipe were shot dead in an open carriage on the north-west corner of the square as they returned from Vila Viçosa; the republic followed on 5 October 1910. A small plaque near the corner of Rua do Arsenal marks the spot, and the Baixa page picks the story up on the streets behind.

The entrance is at Rua Augusta 2, the door in the arch's east pier on the Rua Augusta side, not on the square. A lift takes you to the second floor, where the Clock Room holds a short exhibition on the arch and the rebuild and the clock mechanism itself, and from there it is 74 steps up a narrow spiral to the terrace under Calmels' statues. There is no step-free route past the second floor. The terrace gives the whole geometry of the rebuild at once: the square and the river to the south, Rua Augusta running dead straight to the Rossio to the north with the Santa Justa Lift tower rising off it to the left, the castle on its hill to the east and the Chiado roofs to the west. It is a 360-degree platform and a small one; at the top of a summer afternoon it fills.

Hours are 10:00 to 19:00 daily with last entry at 18:30; the ticket is €5 (about $5.85), free for children up to 5 and for Lisboa Card holders, and the online voucher is valid for six months, which means there is no date to choose and no slot to miss. Turismo de Lisboa prints no reduced fare and no closed day. Our advice: go at 10:00 when the door opens or in the last hour, when the light comes across the river from the west and the square below is in shadow.

• Entrance: Rua Augusta 2, the door in the arch on the street side
• Lift to the second floor, then 74 steps; no step-free route to the terrace
• 10:00 to 19:00, last entry 18:30; €5, free under 6 and with the Lisboa Card
• Voucher valid six months, no timed slot

The Ask Me Lisboa office in the arcade on the east side, at Praça do Comércio 1100-148, is Turismo de Lisboa's main desk: daily 10:00 to 19:00, phone +351 210 312 810, maps and transport information, and the counter where a Lisboa Card bought online is collected. The Lisboa Story Centre next to it, at Terreiro do Paço 78 to 81, is a 60-minute multimedia walk through the city's history with the earthquake as its centrepiece, open 10:00 to 19:00 with last entry at 17:45; its own site printed no price when we read it, so we print none. Martinho da Arcada, in the north-east corner under the arcade, opened in 1782 and is the oldest café in the city; Fernando Pessoa's table is kept as it was, and a coffee at the counter costs what a coffee costs while a table on the square does not.

The Cais das Colunas steps at the bottom of the square are where the city sits at sunset, and the tide table decides how many steps you get. The wine bar of the Viniportugal association in the west arcade pours Portuguese wines by the glass on a prepaid card. And the square is the boarding point for tram 15E to Belém, which is how the one-day itinerary gets you to Jerónimos.

• Ask Me Lisboa: east arcade, daily 10:00–19:00, Lisboa Card collection
• Lisboa Story Centre: Terreiro do Paço 78–81, 10:00–19:00, last entry 17:45, price not stated
• Martinho da Arcada: north-east corner, since 1782, Pessoa's table
• Cais das Colunas: the marble steps into the Tagus
• Tram 15E to Belém: stops on the west side of the square

Restaurants on Praça do Comércio: what to expect

The arcade restaurants are terrace restaurants with a view, and they charge for the view. None of them appears on a list this site can cite, so we name none as a recommendation; the couvert rule applies here more than anywhere in the city, so send back the bread and olives untouched if you do not want them on the bill. For a meal at a fair price walk five minutes north into the Baixa side streets, or ten minutes west to the Time Out Market; the where to eat page names the places by source.

The Baixa food tour is the guided version and eats where the arcades do not.

Terreiro do Paço Metro station on the blue line opens onto the east side of the square; Baixa-Chiado on the blue and green lines is six minutes north up Rua Augusta, and Cais do Sodré on the green line and the Cascais railway is ten minutes west along the river. Tram 15E to Belém and the tourist tram loops stop on the west side, on Rua do Arsenal, and tram 28 crosses Rua da Conceição two blocks north. The Terreiro do Paço ferry terminal on the east side serves Barreiro; the Cacilhas ferry for Cristo Rei leaves from Cais do Sodré, not from here, at €1.60 on zapping since 16 March 2026.

Any Carris or Metro ride is €1.72 on zapping or €1.90 on a single ticket, and all of it is on the €7.25 24-hour ticket. On foot, Rua Augusta is a flat pedestrian street to the Rossio in eight minutes; the Alfama climb starts three blocks east at the Sé.

• Metro: Terreiro do Paço (blue), on the square; Baixa-Chiado (blue, green) 6 min
• Trams: 15E to Belém from the west side; 28 on Rua da Conceição
• Ferries: Terreiro do Paço terminal to Barreiro; Cacilhas from Cais do Sodré
• On foot: Rossio 8 min north, Sé 5 min east, Cais do Sodré 10 min west

It is the hinge between the two halves of a Lisbon day: tram 15E leaves from here for the Belém morning, and the walk back from the river through the arch is the start of the hills afternoon. The one-day itinerary has you on the square twice, at 08:45 for the tram and at 14:30 for the arch and the Sé; the three-day plan gives it a sunset on the Cais das Colunas. With the Santa Justa Lift closed, the arch is the Baixa viewpoint, and the things to do index ranks it against the rest.

The full Lisbon guide starts from the homepage.