Given the rugged configuration of the city, cascading down from the hills of Sé, Batalha or Vitória, it was not always easy to climb from the bottom of the riverside area where the bulk of commercial life unfolded, always combined with the river and the sea to the heart of the city, up there, where the populations were crowded and cultural, business and leisure life developed.
For this reason, the people of Porto have always devised a means of easy and fast locomotion that would simplify access from the riverside to the upper parts of the city.
The dream came true at the end of the last century: on June 4, 1891, the Elevador dos Guindais was inaugurated, which on that day carried more than 2000 people up and down.
The climb from Guindais to Batalha, close to the Casa Pia building, took five minutes, on a steep 412 meters route, but it was a comfortable and pleasant journey.
Two years and a day after the noisy opening, the Elevador dos Guindais definitely stopped its up and down. A stupid accident (which was found in the quick inquiry due to the driver's speeding and human failure) caused one of the two cars (which descended) to crash into the parachute, causing it to shut down. the cable that held the two cars.
Currently, of the entire structure of this elevator only remains the machinery house, in granite, still in good condition, at the top of the painful staircase of the Guindais In this house until recently had the sculptor Henrique Moreira his studio. Now the premises of a marble shop and a sculptor with his studio occupy these facilities.
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