Here’s one image for scale. There is a café in a small basin, with the sculpture of a big bird, made of what sometimes may have been a Tuk.
As cities along rivers or the sea go, some do interesting things with their shores, some are boring. Paris is among the better, Venice is great, Vienna was boring and has begun to catch up. It’s mainly a matter of how the shore is integrated into the city’s life. Good integration means a lot of cafés, places to sit and dream, to sip a cocktail while looking out at the water.
Lisbon has an abundance of shore, but it does not use it in any particularly interesting way. One reason may be, that the water is clearly not clean enough for swimming. The other may be, that Lisbon lives much on its hills. Whatever the reasons may be, the shore is more or less an endless strech of streets and railway lines following the river. Belém is better, but still, the monuments, big and crowded as they are, look a little bit lonely there.