Crawling Through Time: Reflections from Lisbon's secret Roman Galleries

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Yesterday, I crawled through muddy, dark Roman-era tunnels below Lisbon, which are normally filled with groundwater and only accessible to a few visitors each year.

The tunnels were carved during the reign of Emperor Augustus, and for centuries, they directed underground rainwater while the empires above rose and fell.

Eventually, they were completely sealed off and forgotten,  only to be rediscovered by chance during the rebuilding after the 1755 earthquake, which had turned most of Lisbon into rubble.


Today, the crypts are pumped dry on a couple of days each year, and the only entry to the below is through a narrow shaft in the middle of the busy Rua da Conceição, right between the rails of the 28 tram line.

The stairs  leading down are steep and risky, and when you finally reach the galleries, a few lights illuminate the void that had stood in complete darkness for more than a Millenium 




Some of the tunnels are so low and narrow that you have to climb through them on your knees, while the only sounds you hear are the gentle plops of water droplets falling from the ceiling and the occasional faint rumble of a tramcar rolling along its rails high above.


Our group was given precisely 25 minutes underground, and this constraint, initially frustrating, actually revealed itself as a gift. 

In our age of unlimited access – where we expect most content or products to be available on demand – genuine limitation has become foreign. 

Yet limitations focus attention and deepen the experience. When something cannot be postponed or casually revisited, we engage with it more fully.

This is actually what makes these galleries valuable.  

They are dark, wet, and damp, and often low-ceilinged, muddy and claustrophobic. 

However, their rare  accessibility, and limited timeframe are what make them outstanding as they  offer a chance to stand still in a forgotten space, to encounter time's weight, and make you consider what truly supports our lives. 


When I, after the given twenty minutes, returned to street level, I reflected on the value of occasionally "going under" – not just physically beneath the city, but beneath the surface of ordinary perspectives.

If you find yourself in Lisbon in early April, consider forgoing some of the city's many spectacular vistas to stand in the quiet darkness beneath its streets. 

As I did, you may find that going down sometimes offers the best way up.


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