Belém: where the ships set out: a self-guided walk
By Alleytale
The Age of Discovery on the Tagus riverbank
Belém lies on the river where Portuguese ships set out to trade with India and the Orient, and the monastery, the monument and the tower on this walk all celebrate that.
The stops
Queen Amélia started this museum on 23 May 1905, in the former Royal Riding School of the Belém Palace, to bring together the carriages of the royal house. On 23 May 2015 most of the collection moved into this new building by the Brazilian architect Paulo Mendes da Rocha, and a smaller display stays in the old riding school opposite.
Photo: GualdimG — CC BY-SA 4.0 King John V ordered this estate rebuilt in 1726 as a summer home, and it later became a residence of the royal family. After the 1910 revolution the Secretary-General of the Presidency moved in on 24 August 1911. Today it is the official residence of the President of Portugal.
Photo: Kent Wang — CC BY 4.0 Before Vasco da Gama sailed for India in 1497, he and his men spent a night in prayer in the old chapel that stood here, and King Manuel I later replaced it with this monastery, begun in the early 1500s. He chose Hieronymite monks to pray for his soul and to give spiritual help to the sailors leaving from the port. Da Gama and the poet Luís de Camões, who celebrated his first voyage in an epic poem, lie in carved tombs inside the church.
Photo: Helguss — CC BY-SA 4.0 This garden square was part of the Portuguese World Exhibition, which ran from 23 June to 2 December 1940 and marked 800 years since the country's foundation and 300 since it won back independence from Spain. The square is laid out as a series of garden quadrangles around a central illuminated fountain, with seahorse statues by António Duarte over reflecting pools at its southern edge.
Photo: paul Barker Hemings from seregno, 85 — CC BY-SA 2.0 The first version was a temporary structure for the 1940 Portuguese World Exhibition. The monument you see was built between November 1958 and January 1960, in time for the 500th anniversary of the death of Henry the Navigator, and takes the shape of a 56-metre caravel's prow with Henry at its edge. In the square in front, a 50-metre compass rose holds a map showing the routes of Portuguese ships.
Photo: Gerd Eichmann — CC BY-SA 4.0 King Manuel I ordered this fortress and Francisco de Arruda designed it; work began around 1514. It served as a point of embarkation and disembarkation for Portuguese explorers and as a ceremonial gateway to Lisbon. A common story says the 1755 earthquake moved it from mid-river to the shore, but it was built on a small island near the shore, and the bases of its corner turrets carry carved beasts, including a rhinoceros.
Photo: Rehman Abubakr — CC BY-SA 4.0
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