A Square of Ideals

 

In the heart of the city, a few steps from the Moon & Sun Porto Hotel, you will find one of our ex-libris - the Carlos Alberto Square.
It is the ideal stopping and resting point after a stroll through the city.

It owes its name to the homonymous Italian king. After losing a battle with Austria, Carlos Alberto, an avowed liberal, chose Porto to live. This was not unconnected to the fact that the city was seen, in the nineteenth century, as a strong symbol of the defense of freedom and liberal principles.

The king's choice touched the people of Oporto who gratefully embraced him and showed their solidarity to the point that, in 1855, the City Council honored him publicly by deciding that from now on the Ferradores Square would be called Carlos Alberto Square.

And it was here that many years later, in 1958, two hundred thousand people heard the courageous speech of General Humberto Delgado who, in the middle of the military dictatorship, wanted to praise the liberal tradition of Oporto.

"I feel dazzled! These people from Porto, insubmissive to tyranny, have just shown me the luminous road to Freedom. My heart will remain in Porto, since in Porto was born, as in other historical moments, the indomitable spirit of struggle that will only end with the triumph of freedom in Portugal."

The statue in the center of the square is also a monument to freedom to the young Portuguese soldiers who died in World War I.