From the four tentativ sites within the city of Lisbon this seems to me the one with the best perspectives. It is a nice area to walk around though you have to suffer somebody begging or offering their business every five meters. There are nice long views and big squares of which the Rossio is probably the most enjoyable.

This site wakes already a lot of interest though its connection with the terrible 1755 earthquake. The application text is incredibly long which raises the suspicion that they are not so sure about which were the main arguments for the nomination. Some of the claims are quite grand: "the first modern Western city, unique within Europe and indeed the world", „It was the very first to be conceived and executed according to the criteria and comprehensive methodology that continue to form the basis for the urban planning of all newly constructed or regenerated cities today.“ They claim also a „utterly innovative orthogonal plan“. But how original can a orthogonal plan be, when orthoganal cities can be found long before in ancient Greece and Babylonia and in Spanish colonies a hundred years earlier?

The most interesting of the many mentioned criteria may be the earthquake-proof and fire-proof structures, drainage systems for wastewater and rainwater and the planning and creation of a rubbish collection system.

Again, the singularity of all this had to be proven. When I searched on the internet I couldn’t really find a lot of information about any of those features. Maybe it is only available in Portuguese. Walking around the city I found it interesting that the also very nice Barrio alto neighbourhood northwest of the Baixa had a rather similar layout but was designed and constructed in the 16th century. Perhaps there is a connection worth exploring even for this nomination?