Restaurants, bars and museums in Lisbon · Page 192

Jardim Mário Soares

Alvalade · Parks & Gardens

Jardim Mário Soares is a public park in the Alvalade parish of Lisbon, at Campo Grande, 1700-094 Lisboa. It was previously known as the Jardim do Campo Grande. In 2018 it was renamed after former President Mário Soares, who had died a year earlier, and the renamed garden was inaugurated on 25 April 2018 by President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, the anniversary of the 1974 Carnation Revolution. The park covers 13.38 hectares and is one of the larger parks in downtown Lisbon. It is long and narrow, about 150 metres across at its widest, and runs northwest for 1.2 kilometres between two carriageways of Campo Grande, starting near the Campo Grande subway station. Avenida do Brasil divides it into northern and southern sections. The Museum of Lisbon in Pimenta Palace is close by, and the University of Lisbon campus is a short walk to the west. The first reference to the area dates from 1520, and until the 16th century it was called Campo de Alvalade. The first avenue defining the Campo Grande was laid out in 1642, and in 1778 an annual fair, the Feira do Campo Grande or Feira das Nuzes, began. In 1801 Rodrigo de Sousa Coutinho, Count of Linhares, had the park redesigned and expanded in the Romantic style on the orders of the Prince Regent, later King João VI. The first horse races took place in 1816. Between 2012 and 2018 the Lisbon City Council and the University of Lisbon renovated it, at a cost of €1.5 million, adding green space and 700 more trees. Amenities include a playground built in 1954 by landscape architect Manuel Azevedo Coutinho and the first dedicated dog park in Lisbon. Rowboats are offered to the public on an artificial lake, and there are several restaurants, one of them on an island in the lake reached by a small stone bridge. Others are the BarNeário Gastrobar and the Italian restaurant Tutti a Tavola. For exercise there are tennis courts, a large fitness centre, a public table tennis table, padel courts, and a Go-Fit branch with a swimming pool. Public art includes a 1921 bronze bust of Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro by Raul Xavier, two sculpted foals from 1946 by António da Rocha Correia at the entrance to the restaurant Casa do Lago, and statues of Afonso Henriques and Dom João I near the northern end. Four concrete benches between the tennis courts and McDonald's are devoted to abstract games, including Alquerque, Hex and Mancala.

Venues.