Águas Livres Aqueduct

Why go

EPAL, the Lisbon water company whose Museu da Água runs visits to the aqueduct, says the Águas Livres Aqueduct was built between 1731 and 1799 by royal order as a system for collecting and carrying water by gravity, and that it survived the 1755 earthquake. It describes a 14 km main line from the Mãe de Água Velha at Belas, north-west of Lisbon, to the Mãe de Água reservoir at Amoreiras, with secondary branches and galleries that made about 58 km in all by the mid-19th century, and says its water stopped being used for drinking from the 1960s. The arcade across the Alcântara valley is 941 m long with 35 arches, and EPAL says the Museu da Água runs self-guided and guided visits to it; Visit Lisboa says the route open to visitors runs between Campolide and the Monsanto forest park. EPAL says the aqueduct has been a National Monument since 1910. The Mãe d'Água reservoir at Amoreiras is a separate place, not this record.