MORE THAN 18,000 visitors paid the entrance fee to visit Castelo de São Jorge in the first week that the charge was introduced. “Since the introduction of an entrance fee to the castle and between the second and ninth of this month, the number of visitors registered reached 18,621,” revealed EGEAC, the company responsible for the management of the monument. The vast majority of these visitors were Spanish, who were taking advantage of the recent public holidays in Spain. By comparison, the week prior to the entry fee being introduced, 8,353 visitors were registered.
Lisbon residents, children and OAPs are exempt from paying the three euro entry charge and students and families are offered a 50 per cent discount.
Olispónia, one of the audio-visual educational areas within the castle, received “five times as many visitors as usual”. According to EGEAC, which has gauged numbers according to the requests for headphones, have recorded that the week before the charge was made, “nine Portuguese and 148 overseas visitors came to Olispónia, meanwhile, but between December 2 and 9, 33 Portuguese and 773 foreign tourists visited the facility.”
