Cascais old town: from fishing village to royal summer: a self-guided walk
By Alleytale
The old town of Cascais on foot, from the sea museum to a chapel that stood through the earthquake
Cascais was a fishing village until the royal family began spending summers here in 1870, and the stops show that change: a fishing museum, a town charter, a convent turned cultural centre, a theatre the king attended, the sailors' church.
The stops
This museum opened in 1992 in the former Cascais Sporting Club, which Prince Carlos founded in 1879 on the old parade ground of the Citadel. One room, called People of the Seas, tells the story of the town's fishing community with models of fisherfolk, clothing and nets. Another recreates the ocean research King Carlos carried out aboard his yacht Amélia IV.
Photo: Roundtheworld — CC BY-SA 4.0 Henrique de Sommer's family home was built at the end of the 19th century, and after years as a language school and then a children's home it was restored and reopened by the municipality on 7 December 2016. It now holds the town's historical archive and a branch of the municipal library. On display is the Foral of Cascais, a royal document signed by Manuel I that set up a town council and set out its administration, borders and privileges.
Photo: Roundtheworld — CC BY-SA 4.0 This is the mother church of Cascais, dated to the early 16th century and believed to stand on the site of a Visigothic necropolis. In 1900 José Malhoa painted the Assumption of Our Lady on a ceiling panel, commissioned by Queen Amélia, and paintings by Josefa de Óbidos came here from a nearby convent after the monasteries were dissolved in 1834. The 1755 earthquake badly damaged the façade, and when it was restored the 17th-century towers were joined to it.
Photo: GualdimG — CC BY-SA 4.0 Building began in 1594 as the convent of Nossa Senhora da Piedade, and Discalced Carmelite friars moved into the unfinished building in 1596. In 1673 Josefa de Óbidos painted several works on the life of Saint Teresa of Ávila, and after the monasteries were dissolved in 1834 those paintings went to the church you just passed. Since 2000 the old convent has been a cultural centre with exhibitions, and its former chapel is an auditorium for recitals.
Photo: spacetrash from Osaka, JAPAN — CC BY 2.0 This small domed building holds a tide gauge that began recording in 1882, when only three other places in the world had similar equipment. A float in a well moves a pen across paper on a rotating drum, and the original instrument is still in use. Portugal's zero level for measuring heights was calculated from the sea levels recorded here between 1882 and 1938.
Photo: Roundtheworld — CC BY-SA 4.0 Cascais became a town in its own right on 7 June 1364, when King Pedro I raised it to a vila at its inhabitants' request, separating it from Sintra. The castle that protected it was probably begun around 1370 to defend the village from corsair attacks. Only parts of the wall survive, among them a gate flanked by a round turret, with battlements and gun loops, and an 18th-century limestone fountain leans against the wall beside it.
Photo: Rúdisicyon — CC BY-SA 4.0 The front of this building is covered in tile panels of saints, among them Saint Sebastian, Saint Anthony and Saint Martial, and the oldest tiles are believed to date from 1790. It took its name in 1860, when one of its owner's heirs became the first Count of Guarda, and the municipality has owned it since 1932. Today it is the seat of the town's government, and a small museum on the ground floor traces Cascais from prehistory to its growth from a fishing village into a town.
Photo: Dguendel — CC BY 4.0 The theatre opened on 15 August 1869, when Cascais was still a fishing village, after a ship owner named Manuel Rodrigues de Lima started the project. Once the royal family began spending part of each summer in town in 1870, King Luís I and other royals often came to performances. The town's volunteer fire brigade association bought the theatre in 1942 and still runs it.
Photo: Roundtheworld — CC BY-SA 4.0 This 18th-century fountain stands in the Largo do Prior, in the middle of the old town. A square limestone basin holds a closed bowl with four spouts shaped like grotesque faces, and above it rises an obelisk topped with a small pine cone. The Casa do Prior, a building founded in the 17th century, stands on its west side.
Photo: Dguendel — CC BY 4.0 This is the sailors' church of Cascais. It was built between 1715 and 1727, probably to a design by Father Francisco Tinoco da Silva, for the brotherhood of Our Lady of Socorro, which was tied to the town's seamen. The two bell towers you see are much later: they were designed by Tertuliano Marques and finished in 1942. Inside, tiles in the nave, probably painted in 1757, show the Virgin interceding for shipwrecked sailors.
Photo: GualdimG — CC BY-SA 4.0 The Misericórdia brotherhood of Cascais was founded on 11 June 1551 with the licence of King João III. Its patron is Our Lady of the Angels, said by tradition to be a wooden image that washed ashore on the Anjinhos beach. The 1755 earthquake destroyed the church. Rebuilding began in 1759, restarted in 1776 and ended in 1781, and a lack of money left the two towers unfinished. A rule of 1698 said the provedor had to come from the land one year and from the sea the next; it was lifted in 1781, when the brothers argued that too few sea brothers were left.
Photo: Rúdisicyon — CC BY-SA 4.0 This small chapel, probably built in the 17th century, came through the earthquake of 1 November 1755 unharmed. By tradition people took refuge in it, and it served as the parish church of the Ressurreição parish, whose own church lay in ruins. In thanks, a procession was held every 1 November until 1910. The stone cross in front is dated 1634 and was put up in memory of a shipwreck in the bay in 1609. The nearby Praia da Rainha is also called Praia da Conceição, after the chapel.
Photo: Rúdisicyon — CC BY-SA 4.0
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