Lisbon: Crawling Through Time: Reflections from secret Roman Galleries
The tunnels were carved during the reign of Emperor Augustus, and for centuries, they directed underground rainwater while empires above rose and fell.
Eventually, they were sealed off and forgotten - to be rediscovered completely by chance during the rebuilding after the 1755 earthquake, which turned most of Lisbon into rubble.
Today, the crypts are normally completely filled with groundwater, but they are pumped dry on just a couple of days each year, where only a few visitors are allowed access.
Today, I was among the lucky few.
The only entry to the below is through a narrow temporary shaft in the middle of the busy Rua da Conceição, right between the rails of the 28 tram line.
The stairs leading down felt steep and risky, and when I finally reached the galleries, a few lights illuminated the void that had stood in total darkness for more than a Millenium.
Some passages were so low that I had to crawl on my knees. It was wet and claustrophobic, and the only sounds were water droplets hitting the mud and the distant rumble of a tramcar rolling along its rails somewhere above our heads.
Our group of six was given precisely 25 minutes underground to allow as many visitors access as possible, and the guide, a local guy, timed it strictly on his watch.
It actually didnt matter that the muddy tunnels were dark, damp, and low-ceilinged. I just crawled around - in my 25 allotted minutes - studying as much as I could of the dilapidated masonry before the entrance shaft would be sealed off for yet another year.
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