Church of Saint Anthony of Lisbon

Church of Saint Anthony of Lisbon tickets: which one to buy

The church is a minute downhill from Lisbon cathedral, on the route every walking tour of the Alfama takes, and it is free to enter. A small museum next door, run by the city, holds material on the saint and on the site and charges very little. Guided walks of the old town include both, along with the cathedral, the viewpoints and the castle above; the tram that grinds up this street is itself part of the experience and is best taken early before it fills.

Tours built around the June festivals are sold in the weeks beforehand and are worth it if you want to understand what is happening rather than simply stand in a crowd. Nothing needs booking. The street outside is narrow with no pavement in places, so watch for the tram, which passes closer than visitors expect. The museum next door closes on Mondays while the church stays open.

Visiting Church of Saint Anthony of Lisbon: what to see

Tradition places the birthplace of Fernando de Bulhoes, born here in 1195 and known to the world as Anthony of Padua, on this spot; the family house became a chapel in the fifteenth century and was rebuilt in the sixteenth. The earthquake of 1755 destroyed nearly all of it, leaving only the main chapel standing, and the present baroque and rococo church was raised afterwards with money collected from the people of Lisbon, including coins that children asked for in the street.

The front is pale stone with a broken pediment; the interior is compact, with polychrome marble, gilded woodwork and a ceiling painting. Below, a crypt is shown as the room in which the saint was born. Anthony is invoked here as a finder of lost things and, more particularly, as a matchmaker, which explains a great deal about the celebrations in June. Pope John Paul II prayed in the crypt during a visit in 1982, and a plaque in the lower chapel records it.

Church of Saint Anthony of Lisbon opening hours and the best time to go

The thirteenth of June is the saint's day and the city's biggest festival. The night before, the old quarters fill with grilled sardines, paper decorations, street parties and marching parades along the main avenue, and on the day itself the city funds a mass wedding of couples at the cathedral next door, a tradition going back decades. Accommodation is booked out and the streets are impassable after dark;

it is the best week of the year to be in Lisbon and the worst for quiet sightseeing. Otherwise the church is open through the day with a break at lunch. Mornings are calmer in the Alfama, before the tram queues build. Summer afternoons are hot on these steep streets. Twenty minutes inside is enough, plus the museum, and the cathedral next door deserves its own half hour. Tram 28 stops outside and is the classic route through the old quarters, though queues at the terminus are long.