Amadora Audio Tours

Amadora only became a city in 1979, but the land had been occupied for five thousand years before that: the Neolithic Necropolis of Carenque, a set of artificial cave tombs cut from the limestone around 3000 BCE, lies within the municipality. For centuries the fertile hills northwest of Lisbon attracted wealthy families as a summer retreat; industrialization and the city's outward sprawl transformed it into what locals call the bedroom of Lisbon, one of the most densely populated places in the country.

What makes Amadora surprising is its cultural texture.

Nearly half its residents were born abroad, primarily in former Portuguese colonies in Africa and Brazil, giving the city a character distinct from its neighbors. The Alto da Cova da Moura neighborhood has been home to Cape Verdean families for nearly fifty years, and its streets feel more like a West African town than the Lisbon suburbs. Across the city, massive murals cover building walls in one of the region's largest open-air art galleries, while the 18th-century Aguas Livres Aqueduct still runs through the municipality on its ancient course to Lisbon.