SANTA JUSTA ELEVATOR-by Clara Pastor

Santa Justa elevator

Last month we did a trip with the school. It was an amazing experience since we went with our teachers, classmates and we had a lot of fun. We visited so many things, but I want to emphasise one city: Lisbon. Especially the Santa Justa elevator. Most of the readers could think that it is only a big tower in the middle of the city, although, do you know who the builder is? Or how many meters does the elevator has? Let me tell you about it.

First at all, Lisbon is Portugal’s capital, and all the city has slopes. This was a huge issue in ancient times, because they did not have cars so they had to walk or ride horses if they wanted to go to any place, hence Raoul Mesnier (disciple of Gustave Eiffel) designed Santa Justa elevator that connected the lower streets (Baixa) with the higher streets (Chiado) for making it easier.

 It was opened in 1902 and it worked by vapour but not anymore. Now it works thanks to the electricity. It is a vertical tower, with a height of 45 metres,  made of metal with an observation platform and a walkway.The elevator has a capacity of 24 passengers.

When I was a child,  I went to Lisbon and when I saw it, I remember that I really wanted to go up but we didn’t because  we did not have enought time, so that’s why on this trip I had to take the elevator and do you know what? My Friends and I took it!

We went into the elevator that brought you to the top, when we arrived, it was so windy that we had to be careful since we had the feeling that we were going to fall at any time.

The views were astonishing, you could see almost the whole city and it was very beautiful. For example you could see  San Jorge's  Castle, Rossio square, the river …

The houses in Lisbon are colourful, they are cute. When I was on the top, I saw all the houses with different colours, pink, blue, yellow… it was like being in a fairy tale.

 Certainly Lisbon is really different from Madrid in a good way.

After that we crossed the walkway to Chiado, and it made no difference, it was almost the same except, in my opinion, Chiado were more steep.

Overall, the trip has been a wanderful experience and a brilliant farewell of ESO