Setúbal city centre: a market, a poet and a Roman fish factory: a self-guided walk
By Alleytale
Setúbal's old centre on foot, from the pillory square to the poet's house
Fish and the sea run through this walk. Roman tanks salted fish here, a Manueline church went up from about 1490, the market still sells fresh fish, and the poet Bocage, born in Setúbal in 1765, is remembered in his own house-museum.
The stops
This 18th-century pillory is a white marble column with a Corinthian capital. An inscription on its base says it was moved here from the Praça da Ribeira in 1774, on the orders of the Marquês de Pombal. It has been a national monument since 1910.
Photo: GualdimG — CC BY-SA 4.0 Built from about 1490 as a church for Poor Clare nuns, with King John II as its sponsor and Diogo de Boitaca named as its architect, this is one of the first buildings in the Manueline style. Inside, the pillars are twisted columns of stone, and some ribs of the vault are twisted like rope. The cloisters now hold a museum.
Photo: Diego Delso — CC BY-SA 4.0 Setúbal's main market opened on 31 July 1876 and still sells fresh fish and farm produce. The present building dates from 1930, and its walls carry some 5,700 azulejo tiles showing the city's farming and fishing. In 2015 the newspaper USA Today counted it among the world's best fish markets.
Photo: Viet-hoian1 — CC BY-SA 4.0 This is Setúbal's main church, on Praça de Bocage. The great earthquake of 1755 almost completely destroyed it, and only the Manueline portals survive from the church King Manuel I had rebuilt in the 1510s. The side portal has twisted rope-like columns, and inside, blue-and-white tiles show scenes from the lives of Julian and Basilissa.
Photo: Alvesgaspar — CC BY-SA 4.0 Beneath a building on Travessa de Frei Gaspar lie the tanks of a Roman fish-salting factory, found in 1979 during building work. It had fourteen tanks, and it salted fish and small crustaceans to make foods and condiments, especially garum. The site was in use from the 1st century to the 5th or 6th.
Photo: Viet-hoian1 — CC BY-SA 4.0 Setúbal's cathedral was founded in the 13th century in the heart of the original medieval town, and the city's main medieval district grew up around it. The building you see is a High Renaissance reconstruction with a Mannerist facade. Inside are frescoed columns and tiles from the 17th and 18th centuries.
Photo: Diego Delso — CC BY-SA 4.0 This house-museum is devoted to the poet Manuel Maria Barbosa du Bocage, who was born in Setúbal in 1765, and a plaque on its wall marks it as the house where he was born. In 1888 Viscount Edmond Bartissol bought it and gave it to the town, which is why the street carries his name. Today it holds a library on Bocage's life and work and an exhibition that follows his life.
Photo: Viet-hoian2 — CC BY-SA 4.0
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