Carmo Convent

Carmo Convent tickets: which one to buy

The ruined Carmelite church is ticketed, because the shell now houses the city's archaeological museum, and the ticket covers both. It is inexpensive and rarely sells out, though a queue forms in the middle of the day in summer. Most visitors arrive without planning to, by taking the iron lift from the lower town, which delivers you to a walkway almost at the door; the lift itself has long queues and is included in the city transport pass, so use the pass rather than paying at the machine.

Guided walks of the Chiado and the Bairro Alto include the square outside, and earthquake-themed tours use the church as their central exhibit, which is the most coherent way to understand what happened to Lisbon in 1755. Tours about the revolution of 1974 also stop here, since the barracks on the same square were where the old regime surrendered. If you take nothing else, take the explanation of one of those two events.

Visiting Carmo Convent: what to see

The convent was founded in 1389 by the general who had won the country its independence from Castile, and he later entered it himself as a friar. By the eighteenth century it was one of the largest religious houses in Lisbon. On All Saints' Day in 1755 the earthquake brought the vaults down onto a church full of people, and the fire and wave that followed destroyed most of the rest of the city. The decision, taken slowly over the following century, was to leave it as it was.

What remains is the outline of a Gothic church open to the sky: five bays of pointed arches standing free, the columns rising to nothing, the chancel roofed and holding the museum. The collection is idiosyncratic rather than systematic, assembled by a nineteenth-century learned society, and includes prehistoric carvings, Roman and Visigothic stones, medieval royal tombs, an Egyptian sarcophagus and two Andean mummies in a glass case. The tomb of King Ferdinand I is the finest object in it.

Carmo Convent opening hours and the best time to go

Late afternoon is the best time, when the low sun comes through the empty arches and the stone turns warm. The ruin has no roof, so a wet day is genuinely uncomfortable and a hot midday is worse. It closes on Sundays for part of the year, which catches people out. The square outside has orange trees, a fountain and cafe tables, and is one of the few quiet corners left in this part of the city.

From the walkway beside the church there is a clear view down over the Baixa grid and across to the castle, and it is free, unlike the viewing platform on top of the lift. Evenings in the Bairro Alto above are loud until very late. In summer the ruin is occasionally used for concerts and outdoor cinema, which is by some distance the best way to see it. Allow an hour, more if the museum labels interest you, and combine it with the Chiado and the bookshops on the way down.