Well, folks, it turns out the charming, picturesque, Instagram-worthy mode of vertical transportation known as the “Elevador da Gl\u00f3ria” decided to add a little too much drama to its usual uphill battle in Lisbon. You know, just your average day when a beloved century-old funicular goes from quaint to catastrophic faster than you can say “tourist photo op.”<\/p>\n
Apparently, the “glory” in Elevador da Gl\u00f3ria now refers to the sheer audacity required to survive a ride. How vintage. Seventeen lives tragically lost, 21 injured, and officials are still playing the world\u2019s favorite post-tragedy game show: \u201cWhose Fault Is It Anyway?\u201d<\/p>\n
Eyewitnesses described the scene as \u201cchaotic,\u201d but then again, when a massive railcar detaches and makes gravity its co-pilot, chaos is pretty much the onboard entertainment. Lisbon\u2019s historic quarter, with its cobblestone streets, azulejo tiles, and now a surplus of crash debris, has never looked more authentically tragic.<\/p>\n
And yes, Germans are among the victims. Because forget beer and efficiency \u2014 sometimes, vacation roulette spins the funicular wheel and lands on “We’re very sorry for your loss in three languages.”<\/p>\n
Officials, shocked that a vehicle first launched in the late 1800s could possibly have safety issues, are now investigating the cause. Don’t worry, I\u2019m sure \u201cdecades of wear and tear\u201d and \u201cmaintenance budget: \u20ac12 and a heartfelt wish\u201d had absolutely nothing to do with it.<\/p>\n
In the meantime, tourists are kindly advised to stick to safer forms of transport \u2014 like scooters piloted by drunk expats, or the ever-reliable \u201cjust walk and pray the hill isn\u2019t steep.\u201d Alternatively, if you were hoping for a thrill ride, there\u2019s always Ryanair.<\/p>\n
Our thoughts go out to the families affected, and also to whatever engineer is currently deleting “Gl\u00f3ria is totally secure” from their LinkedIn profile while updating their CV to include \u201cunexpected rollercoaster operator.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lisbon, darling \u2014 beautiful as ever. Just maybe skip the railways next time and go straight to the wine tasting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Well, folks, it turns out the charming, picturesque, Instagram-worthy mode of vertical transportation known as the “Elevador da Gl\u00f3ria” decided to add a little too much drama to its usual uphill battle in Lisbon. You know, just your average day when a beloved century-old funicular goes from quaint to catastrophic faster than you can say…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-uncategorized"],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":3,"label":"News"},{"value":1,"label":"Uncategorized"}]},"featured_image_src_large":false,"author_info":{"display_name":"blogger","author_link":"https:\/\/swen-mercer.com\/de\/author\/blogger\/"},"comment_info":0,"category_info":[{"term_id":3,"name":"News","slug":"news","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":3,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":93,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":3,"category_count":93,"category_description":"","cat_name":"News","category_nicename":"news","category_parent":0},{"term_id":1,"name":"Uncategorized","slug":"uncategorized","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":1,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":27,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":1,"category_count":27,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Uncategorized","category_nicename":"uncategorized","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/swen-mercer.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/swen-mercer.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/swen-mercer.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swen-mercer.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swen-mercer.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=357"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/swen-mercer.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":527,"href":"https:\/\/swen-mercer.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357\/revisions\/527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/swen-mercer.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swen-mercer.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swen-mercer.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}