Another place steeped in a magical atmosphere is the Livraria Lello bookstore. This family-run bookstore, opened in 1906, became famous for its rows of books. The Lello brothers, who ran the bookstore at the time, hired engineer Xavier Esteves to build the Livraria Lello bookstore on Rua das Carmelitas. The bookstore has been voted the third most beautiful bookstore in the world. Its interior certainly deserves such an award and is truly enchanting.

The building’s Gothic exterior, with its stone carvings and religious paintings, is so detailed that it looks more like a church than a bookstore from the outside, but once you walk through the doors, you’ll see Art Nouveau design in everything from the walls and columns to the curves of the staircase.

SECRET OF BOOKSELLING

 The entire bookstore is completely covered in ornately carved wood from top to bottom. At least that’s what it looks like. But the reality is different. All the wooden details you see are actually painted plaster that resembles wood. Because besides the Harry Potter story, Livraria Lello also hides a little, little-known secret. The bookstore has a private room called the “Gemma Room” where they keep their oldest book collections. The oldest book they have in the Gemma Room is a law book from 1476 that discusses various punishments for breaking certain laws. The book is an “incunable,” which is a word used to describe books printed between 1450 and 1500.

The iconic staircase was previously brown, but in the mid-1990s a painter was hired to repaint the staircase. Without the bookstore owner’s permission, he painted the staircase red overnight. The owner ended up liking it and kept the color.

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Don’t forget to look up! There’s a huge stained glass window on the ceiling that says “Decus in labore.” This was the motto of the Lello brothers, meaning “honor in labor.” You’ll also see carved wood across the ceiling. However, this is actually an ingenious technique of painting plaster to look like wood.

Unfortunately, the whole atmosphere is ruined by a lot of people who definitely didn’t come here to buy a book, but to take a picture on the red staircase. It was almost impossible to take a picture of the stairs without people. You might remember the scene from Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, in which the stairs at Hogwarts keep moving and take little wizards to unwanted places.

It’s not hard to fall in love with this bookstore. When you see it for the first time, you feel infatuated and it’s so easy to understand why J. K. Rowling was inspired by it. Those walls, shelves, books and stairs that gave rise to the Hogwarts staircase tell a thousand stories. It’s a real pleasure!