Pilar 7 Bridge Experience

Inside Pilar 7 and its cable anchorages

Pilar 7 is the one pillar where the bridge’s hanging steel span meets the concrete viaduct, and it anchors the cables from the north bank. Inside it’s hollow, built around three huge anchor blocks.

The route starts before you even go in, at least as Time Out described it the week it opened, in 2017. Big metal discs set in the pavement tell the story of the construction.

On the ground floor, the first room has a model of the bridge and a timeline that goes back to 1824. The Workers’ Room honours the people who built the bridge in the 1960s, with 360° films of the works projected on the walls, sound effects and all.

From there, two twin rooms show the main anchorages up close. On the fourth floor are the Mirror Room and the Cable Room, and a staircase hung in mid-air, with mirrors on the floor and ceiling.

The climb to the Pilar 7 viewpoint

At the top, on the 26th floor, the viewpoint is partly glass and sits right beside the road deck. The traffic runs past at your level, and the Tagus opens out below.

For now you get there on foot. The lift has been out of service since at least the summer of 2024, by Time Out’s account, and the Lisbon tourist board’s shop says the viewpoint is stairs only: 372 steps.

A visitor in June 2026 found plenty of stairs but a handrail too, and gave one tip for them: take your time, it’s not a race. A review from the same day found the glass floor at the top scratched and hard to see through.

Pilar 7 publishes nothing on step-free access, and without the lift the viewpoint is out of reach for anyone who can’t manage stairs.

Pilar 7 hours, tickets and the lift

The Lisboa Card includes Pilar 7, and card holders get 10% off in the shop.

With a Lisboa Card, €31 for a day, you show the card and go in. A ticket bought separately is €5.50, and whichever you use, the lift isn’t running, even if a ticket description still promises a ride in it.

Crowds don’t seem to be a problem. Visitors in May and June 2026 found it close to empty, and one counted four other people.

Pilar 7 and the story of the 25 de Abril Bridge

The bridge opened on 6 August 1966 and was known as the Ponte Salazar, after António de Oliveira Salazar, the dictator who ran Portugal for decades.

That name lasted until October 1974, more than five months after the revolution of 25 April ended the dictatorship. A team of workers from Sorefame, a Portuguese engineering firm, led by Colonel Varela Gomes, took down the iron letters of Salazar’s name.

The rail deck underneath only opened in 1999, and on 6 August 2026 the bridge turned 60.

Pilar 7 itself opened on 27 September 2017, World Tourism Day. The architect António Borges designed it, and the works took nine months. According to the business paper Jornal de Negócios, half of its €5.3 million cost came from Lisbon’s tourist tax.

Time Out, reporting on the opening, gave the figures for the main cables: 54,196 km of steel wire, laid over 76 days without a break, with 11,248 wires in each cable.

Alcântara on foot from Pilar 7

Pilar 7 stands on Avenida da Índia, at the Alcântara end of the bridge, where the riverside road heads out towards Belém. Tram 15E, buses 714, 727, 732 and 751 and the Cascais-line train to Alcântara all stop nearby, and you ride them all on the Lisboa Card.