Libertas Traditional Geocache

ENGLISH

Avenida da Liberdade (Liberty Avenue) is an important avenue in central Lisbon, in Portugal. It is a 90 metre-wide boulevard with ten lanes divided by pedestrian pavements decorated with gardens built in the style of the Champs-Élysées. It links Restauradores Square with the Marquis of Pombal Square.

The Liberdade Avenue and the Restauradores Square have its origins in a public park (Passeio Público) inaugurated in the area in 1764, created by Pombaline architect Reinaldo Manuel. Initially surrounded by a high wall, the park was revamped in the 1830s and 1840s by architect Malaquias Ferreira Leal, who introduced a new arrangement of the flora as well as fountains, a waterfall and statues. The allegoric statues representing the Tagus river and Douro river in the boulevard of the avenue date from this time.
After much discussion and polemics, the avenue was built between 1879 and 1886, modelled after the boulevards of Paris. Its creation was a landmark in the Northwards expansion of the city, and it quickly became a preferred address for the upper class.

Many of the original buildings of the avenue have been replaced in the last decades by tall office and hotel buildings. Nowadays it boasts several interesting buildings that reflect Portuguese architecture from the late 19th through the early 21st centuries. Its pedestrian sidewalks and roundabouts, paved with the traditional Portuguese pavement, are decorated with many monuments and statues that pay hommage to important personalities like Almeida Garrett, Alexandre Herculano and others. The large monument to the fallen in World War I, inaugurated in 1931, is the work of Rebelo de Andrade and Maximiano Alves.

On the lenght of Liberty Avenue there are a lot of monuments like statues and effigies:

"All Links have the English option" 

    * Statue of Alexandre Herculano, made by Barata Feio, 1950
    * Statue of Almeida Garrett made by Barata Feio, 1950
    * Statue of António Feliciano de Castilhomade by Leopoldo de Almeida, 1950
    * Statue of Oliveira Martins made by Leopoldo de Almeida, 1952

on the crossing with the Alexandre Herculano Street.

    * Monument to Rosa Araújo, made by Costa Mota, Sob., 1936

    * Monument to the ones killed in the World War I made by Maximiano Alves and by the brothers Rebelo de Andrade, 1931

    * Statue of Simon Bolivar  made by Arturo R. Aguilero, offered by the Portuguese Community in Venezuela, inaugurated in 1978

    * Monument to Pinheiro Chagas  made by Costa Mota (uncle), 1908