25 de Abril Bridge
The bridge still wears the date the dictatorship ended.
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Inaugurated in 1966 and named after the Portuguese dictator who ordered its construction, the bridge lost that name the moment the 1974 Carnation Revolution swept away his Estado Novo regime. Its 1,013-metre main span crosses the Tagus to Almada, carrying six car lanes on the upper deck and a double-track railway below — the lower deck was designed from day one but not built until 1999.
What to look for
- The two-deck structure: road traffic above, a double-track railway electrified at 25 kV AC below — an engineering detail planned at construction and finally added in 1999
- Cristo-Rei (Christ the King monument) at the southern anchor point in Almada, which determined exactly where the bridge lands
- The 1,013-metre main span itself — long enough to rank it 48th among suspension bridges worldwide
The lower deck runs an active railway, making a Tagus crossing by train possible directly beneath six lanes of traffic.
25 de Abril Bridge is one of 36 sights worth the detour in Lisbon, all bundled offline in Voyage GO — download the Lisbon pack and it sits on your map with no signal, filling your travel passport the moment you walk past.
More to see in Lisbon
- Belém TowerThe last thing Portuguese explorers saw before the Atlantic swallowed their ships whole.
- Vasco da Gama BridgeThe EU's longest bridge opened on 29 March 1998 to mark 500 years since Vasco da Gama found the sea route to India — and at this scale, that ambition registers.
- Jerónimos MonasteryVasco da Gama prayed here the night before sailing to India — then came back to rest here forever.
- Estádio da LuzThe stadium that replaced a 120,000-seat colossus, then hosted a Euro final, two Champions League finals, and 17 million visitors — all under a name that traces to a church, not poetry.
- Estádio José AlvaladeFifty thousand seats, all dark green — two decades of deliberate repainting turned Sporting CP's home into a single-colour architectural statement.
- Lisbon Cathedral (Sé)Raised in 1147 directly on the site of Lisbon's main mosque, the same year crusaders retook the city.