Arialva, Almada, Portugal
08/06/2022
For our fourth day in Lisbon we had decided to take the boat over to Cacilhas, the town on the opposite site of the strait. While it took us half an hour by subway to reach the shore, the actual crossing was quite quick.
From the quay on the other side it was only a quick tram ride into Almada, the bigger town on that side of the water. From there we were already in walking distance of our destination Cristo Rei, the oversized Rio-de-Janeiro-looking statue of Jesus himself. So we set out to take a look. Approaching it, the dimensions became clear. It is a massive concrete figure throning over Lisbon with strong similarities to the statue in Brazil.
We wanted to enjoy the view from the bottom of the statue first. Since the construct is located on top of a hill, even the ground level offered a very top-down view onto Ponte and the city of Lisbon. We took some pictures before going towards the statue’s entrance.
Originally we had not planned to go up the statue but figured that while we were there, we might as well. As you would expect from a church-run landmark it was quite expensive. Entry was 6€ each, with no discounts for students available. They also took cash only, leaving me with an exact balance of 0€ in my pocket. Nonetheless, we were excited to go upstairs and get a surround view. After waiting a few minutes, the elevator finally arrived and we were taken to the top (at least almost, there were still some flights of stairs needed to go all the way up).
Having seen everything it was time to go down again. As with any other museum, sight, or Italian gas station, the exit route took us through the gift shop. It was essentially a gift shop like any other, but with all christian items like different size, form & material Jesus statues starting from 4€ and going into the 3 digits, as well as countless religious items and pictures of Maria & other saints. While we personally did not feel the need to purchase anything, many other visitors jumped on the opportunity and showed their charity and mercy by acquiring multiple Jesus’.
Before you interpret my description as blasphemous, consider that all lore indicates that Jesus more specifically stands for humbleness and modesty. And if I did not know better, I would have assumed that christian gift shop to be straight out of a Monty Python movie.
In any case, we left the area and followed a small dirt path left of the main building towards the waterfront. It was quite hidden but I had spotted someone walking there earlier so we knew it would lead us to the shore. The secluded pathway went even lower than Ponte, giving us a view that few tourists get and allowing for some brilliant pictures.
As you would expect, it was also a great spot to – as always – go on a little aerial adventure.
After that we wanted to walk down to the waterfront. The paths got increasingly narrow and uncharted but we knew the direction and were motivated to find a way.
Once at the beach we climbed some concrete blocks and took in the view. Massive Ponte was right above us and I decided to take some more pictures.
You can find the video of Ponte on YouTube here.
After almost two hours of relaxing and taking pictures we wanted to discover the series of ruins we had spotted earlier. They were located along the shore in the direction of our boat stop, so we followed the path along the shore. After a while we found ourselves in front of a locked gate with no way around, so we had to climb through to continue our journey.
This lead us into a massive abandoned area. And as you likely know from my post Aftermath – A Story of Decay, I love exploring these – by foot and by air. The estate is called ‘Quinta da Arealva‘ and I found another blog giving some background information. Apparently it is a former winery.
You can find the video of the ruin here.
What we did not know at the time was that a scene of the Netflix series ‘La Casa de Papel‘ was filmed at the exact same spot where we took our pictures.
As you would imagine, walking in the sun all day had made us quite tired, so our next mission was to buy some water and find something to eat. The way there tooks us through a partly abandoned fishing village.
After almost another hour of walking we finally found the nearest restaurant. And it was a true gem! The food was simple but tasty and prices were more than affordable. We had a lot of water to re-hydrate and some meat, fish, and chips. The place also served an incredibly tasty caramel pudding which we enjoyed very much.
After replenishing our energy we walked to the boat stop and took the next ferry back to Lisbon. We walked along the shore for a while but since we were quite tired from all the walking we decided to return to the hotel after some time.
Tchau!