I often recall the day my wife Barbara and I left our hotel -- The Tivoli, on the imposing Avenue of Liberty so broad it feels like parkland -- to begin our way through a maze of alleyways, some so narrow I could extend my arms and touch buildings on either side.

In time we entered the Baixa, a neighbourhood not just filled with history but also business.

There you're surrounded by what may be history's finest example of major restoration. On Nov. 1, 1755, Lisbon was decimated by an earthquake, which reduced much of the city to rubble and took the lives of 15,000 people. Its magnificent recovery was begun by a great Prime Minister, Marques de Pombal, whose gifts live on in the fine architecture and construction that lasted many years.

It's a banquet for a walker's eye: The triumphal arch leading to Rua Augusta, neo-Manueline buildings like Rossio Station, neo-Moorish edifices like Casa do Alentejo, a meticulously restored 18th-century house on pedestrian-only Rua das Portas de Santo Antao.

Plus, for relaxing the eyes and feet there's the great square Praca da Figueira. For a choice of cafes, go to the tree-shaded square, Praca dos Restauradores. Pause on the terraces and take in the pleasure of watching Lisbon life pass by.

A few minutes' walk from the square is a funicular, Elevador da Gloria, which takes you on a one-minute ride up to the Barrio Alto, or "upper city."

Not far from the place the funicular arrives is a magnificent 16th-century church, the baroque Capela de Sao Joao, a chapel inside a 16th-century church. The chapel glows with mosaics and the splendour of semi-precious stones, a reminder of another and greater age when Portugal was a world power.

Barrio Alto, is a neighbourhood made for walking. Its cobblestoned streets wind past tiny old stores never far from ornate and sometimes shuttered churches, baroque chapels, and marvellously tiled houses of the 1800s. One such is on Rua da Trindade, its exterior facade embellished with figures depicting early, world renowned days of Portuguese scholarship in science, agriculture and commerce.

We stopped here and there, memorably at Solar do Vinho do Porto, a famous 18th-century mansion. Today Portugal's port wine institute occupies the ground floor and offers up to 200 varieties of the beverage. It's a restful shadowy place, but welcoming, so we lingered awhile -- the only guests for almost a half hour. Later we walked to a gleaming public garden, filled with families.

But the highlight of our roughly two-hour excursion was its final destination: The "miradouro," or wall. There, beyond and below the balustrade, Lisbon spreads. To one side, the battlements of ancient castles, to another side treed hills, and to yet another, an ancient Augustianian monastery, once filled by monks but now used by the military.

Looking at the monastery buildings and knowing a bit of their past, summoned one of the most famous words of the Portuguese language: Saudade. It's derived from the Latin word for solitude. For ages the Portuguese have tried to define for themselves the precise meaning of saudade but few feel they've fully described it.

In part, it's a longing for past glory that can't be relived.

But at least on that beautiful day at the balustrade over Lisbon, we had a glimpse of that past, which to many Portuguese is never truly past at all.

For travel information, see portugalvirtual.pt/_tourism/costadelisboa.

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