t Opulent carriages exibited at the Museu Nacional dos Coches
t Opulent carriages exibited at the Museu Nacional dos Coches
This unique collection of coaches is arguably the finest in Europe. First established in the old Royal Riding School, the museum showcases a unique and opulent collection of coaches, carriages and sedan chairs dating from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. The collection was moved to a new, modern building by the Brazilian architect Paulo Mendes da Rocha, winner of the 2006 Pritzker Prize, in 2015.
The space enabled more modern vehicles to be added to the display. However, for most visitors the historic royal carriages still steal the show. Made in Portugal, Italy, France, Austria and Spain, carriages range from the plain to the preposterous. One of the earliest is the comparatively simple 17th-century leather and wood coach of Philip II of Spain. As time goes by, the coaches become more sumptuous, the interiors lined with red velvet and gold, the exteriors carved and decorated with allegories and royal coats of arms. Three huge Baroque coaches made in Rome for the Portuguese ambassador to the Vatican, Dom Rodrigo Almeida e Menezes, Marquês de Abrantes, are the epitome of pomp, embellished with life-size gilded statues.
Further examples of royal carriages include two-wheeled cabriolets, landaus and pony-drawn chaises used by young members of the royal family. The 18th-century Eyeglass Chaise, whose black leather hood is pierced by sinister eye-like windows, was made during the Pombal era, when lavish decoration was discouraged. The museology, installed in 2017, presents interactive displays that give context to the collection.
Most of Belém’s museums and historic buildings were built for the 1940 Portugal Expo.
t Manicured gardens of the Palácio de Belém
Built by the Conde de Aveiras in 1559, before the Tagus had receded, this palace once had gardens bordering the river. In the 1700s it was bought by João V, who made it suitably lavish for his amorous liaisons.
When the 1755 earthquake struck, the king, José I, and his family were staying here and thus survived the devastation of central Portugal. Fearing another tremor, the royal family temporarily set up camp in tents in the palace grounds, while the interior was used as a hospital. Today the elegant pink building is the official residence of the President of Portugal.
The Museu da Presidência da República holds personal items and state gifts of former presidents, as well as the official portrait gallery.
Also known as the Jardim do Ultramar, this peaceful park with ponds, waterfowl and peacocks attracts surprisingly few visitors. Designed at the beginning of the 20th century as the research centre of the Institute for Tropical Sciences, it is more of an arboretum than a flower garden. The emphasis is on rare and endangered tropical and subtropical trees and plants. Among the most striking are dragon trees, native to the Canary Islands and Madeira, monkey puzzle trees from South America and a splendid avenue of Washington palms. The charming Oriental garden with its streams, bridges and hibiscus is heralded by a large Chinese-style gateway that represented Macau in the Exhibition of the Portuguese World in 1940.
The research buildings are located in the neighbouring Palácio dos Condes da Calheta, whose interior walls are covered with azulejos that span three centuries. Temporary exhibitions are held in the palace (closed 12:30–2pm).
Experience Belém
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t An exhibition of pottery at the Museu Nacional de Arqueologia
The long west wing of the Mosteiro dos Jerónimos, which was formerly the monks’ dormitory, has been an archaeological museum since 1893. Reconstructed in the middle of the 19th century, the building is a poor imitation of the Manueline original. The museum houses Portugal’s main archaeological research centre and the exhibits, from sites all over the country, include a gold Iron Age bracelet, Visigothic jewellery found in the Alentejo in southern Portugal, Roman ornaments, some fine Roman mosaics and early-8th-century Moorish artifacts.
The main Greco-Roman and Egyptian section is particularly strong on funerary art, featuring figurines, tombstones, masks, terracotta amulets and funeral cones inscribed with hieroglyphics alluding to the solar system, dating from 6000 BC.
The dimly lit Room of Treasures is full of exquisit gold and silver artifacts, including coins, necklaces, bracelets and other jewellery dating from 1800 to 500 BC. This room has been refurbished to allow more of the magnificent jewellery, unseen by the public for decades, to be displayed. In addition, the museum holds temporary exhibitions from time to time.
Financed by the Gulbenkian Foundation and built in 1965, this modern building sits incongruously beside the Jerónimos monastery. Inside, the planetarium reveals the mysteries of the cosmos. There are shows in Portuguese, English, Spanish and French several times a week, explaining the movement of the stars and our solar system, as well as presentations on the constellations or the Star of Bethlehem (Belém). The Hubble Vision show includes stunning images provided by the orbital telescope.
t Fine models of old sailing ships on display at the Museu de Marinha
The Maritime Museum was inaugurated in 1962 in the west wing of the Jerónimos monastery. It was here, in the chapel built by Henry the Navigator, that mariners took Mass before embarking on their voyages. A hall devoted to the Discoveries illustrates the progress in shipbuilding from the mid-15th century, capitalizing on the experience of long-distance explorers. Small replicas show the transition from the barque to the lateen-rigged caravel, through the faster square-rigged caravel, to the Portuguese nau.
Also here are navigational instruments, astrolabes and replicas of 16th-century maps showing the world as it was known then. The stone pillars, carved with the Cross of the Knights of Christ, are replicas of the types of padrão set up as monuments to Portuguese sovereignty on the lands discovered.
A series of rooms displaying models of modern Portuguese ships leads on to the Royal Quarters, where you can see the exquisitely furnished wood-panelled cabin of King Carlos and Queen Amélia from the royal yacht Amélia, built in Scotland in 1900.
The modern, incongruous pavilion opposite houses original royal barges, the most extravagant of which is the royal brig built in 1780 for Maria I. The collection ends with an exhibition of seaplanes, including the Santa Clara, which made the first crossing of the South Atlantic, from Portugal to Rio de Janeiro, in 1922.
Experience Belém
In 1498, Vasco da Gama (right) sailed around the Cape of Good Hope and opened the sea route to India. Although the Hindu ruler of Calicut was not excited by his humble offerings of cloth and wash basins, Da Gama returned to Portugal with a cargo of spices. In 1502, he sailed again to India, setting up Portuguese trade routes in the Indian Ocean. João III nominated him viceroy of India in 1524, but he died soon after.
Standing between the Tagus and the Jerónimos monastery, this stark, modern building was erected as the headquarters of the Portuguese presidency of the European Community. In 1993 it opened as a cultural centre offering performing arts, music and photography. An exhibition centre houses the Museu Colecção Berardo.
Both the café and restaurant spill out onto the ramparts of the building, whose peaceful gardens look out over the quay and the river.
t Padrão dos Descobrimentos, inaugurated in 1960
Standing prominently on the Belém waterfront, this huge angular structure, the Padrão dos Descobrimentos (Monument to the Discoveries), was built in 1960 to mark the 500th anniversary of the death of Henry the Navigator. The 52-m- (170-ft-) high monument, commissioned by the Salazar regime, commemorates the mariners, royal patrons and all those who took part in the development of the Portuguese Age of Discovery. The monument is designed in the shape of a caravel, with Portugal’s coat of arms on the sides and the sword of the Royal House of Avis rising above the entrance. Henry the Navigator stands at the prow with a caravel in hand. In two sloping lines either side of the monument are stone statues of Portuguese heroes linked with the Age of Discovery, such as Dom Manuel I holding an armillary sphere, the poet Camões with a copy of Os Lusíadas and the painter Nuno Gonçalves.
On the monument’s north side, the huge mariner’s compass cut into the paving stone was a gift from South Africa in 1960. The central map, dotted with galleons and mermaids, shows the routes of the discoverers in the 15th and 16th centuries. Inside the monument, a lift (there is a fee) whisks you up to the sixth floor where steps then lead to the top for a splendid panorama of Belém. The basement level is used for temporary exhibitions.
The Padrão is not to everyone’s taste but the setting is undeniably splendid and the caravel design is imaginative. The monument looks particularly dramatic when viewed from the west in the light of the late afternoon sun.
Monks used egg whites to starch robes, and gave the leftover yolks to bakeries to bake pastéis de Belém.
The brainchild of business mogul and art collector José Manuel Rodrigues Berardo, this fascinating gallery, in the Centro Cultural de Belém, boasts around 1,000 works by more than 500 artists. The Museu Colecção Berardo provides a rich compendium of a century of modern and contemporary art through a variety of media, from canvas to sculpture and from photography to video installations.
Highlights include Pablo Picasso’s Tête de Femme (1909), a good example of the Spanish artist’s Cubist style; variants of Andy Warhol’s famous Brillo Box (1964–8); and Jeff Koons’ Poodle (1991). Other artists on show include Francis Bacon, Willem de Kooning and Henry Moore. Notable Portuguese art on display includes Alberto Carneiro’s sculptures and etchings by Paula Rego.
Experience Belém
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t MAAT, housed in an innovative building beside the Tagus river
With riverside views, the stylish Museu de Arte, Arquitetura e Tecnologia, popularly known as MAAT, is operated by the EDP Foundation, and is dedicated to contemporary art, primarily Portuguese, along with modern architecture and technology. Exhibits are housed in an award-winning building designed by the London-based architect Amanda Levete. Its structure is a sharp contrast to the well-known Portugal power station, which stands next door and forms an integral part of this building complex. Visits to the MAAT include a tour of the iconic power station, and access to the building's undulating pedestrian roof which affords stunning views of Portugal and the Tagus river.
As well as cutting-edge temporary exhibitions, the museum also features the Pedro Cabrita Reis Collection, which consists of some 400 works by over 70 artists from the end of the 20th century.
Also known as the Capela de São Jerónimo, this little chapel was constructed in 1514 when Diogo Boitac was working on the Jerónimos monastery. Although a far simpler building, it is also Manueline in style and may have been built to a design by Boitac. The only decorative elements on the monolithic chapel are the four pinnacles, corner gargoyles and Manueline portal. Perched on a quiet hill above Belém, the chapel has fine views. A path from the terrace winds down the hill towards the Torre de Belém.
t Colourful stained glass gracing the chapel of Ermida de São Jerónimo
Built in 1760, this church was founded by King José I in gratitude for his escape from an assassination plot on the site in 1758. The king was returning from a secret liaison with a lady of the noble Távora family when his carriage was attacked and a bullet hit him in the arm. Pombal used this as an excuse to get rid of his enemies in the Távora family, accusing them of conspiracy. In 1759 they were savagely tortured and executed. Their deaths are commemorated by a pillar in Beco do Chão Salgado, off Rua de Belém.
The Neo-Classical domed church has a marble-clad interior and a small chapel, on the right, containing the tomb of Pombal, who died at the age of 83, a year after being banished from Portugal.
t Manicured formal gardens of the Jardim Botânico da Ajuda
Laid out on two levels by Pombal in 1768, these Italian-style gardens provide a pleasant respite from the noisy suburbs of Belém. The entrance on Calçada da Ajuda (wrought-iron gates in a pink wall) is easy to miss. The park comprises 5,000 plant species from Africa, Asia and America. Notable features are the 400-year-old dragon tree, native of Madeira, and the flamboyant 18th-century fountain decorated with serpents, winged fish, sea horses and mythical creatures. A majestic terrace looks out over the lower level of the gardens.
Insider Tip
To view the most exotic plant specimens in the Jardim Botânico da Ajuda, head straight for the upper level. Here you can delight at the ancient dragon tree from Madeira and a sprawling Schotia Afra.
The royal palace, which was destroyed by fire in 1795, was replaced in the early 19th century by this magnificent Neo-Classical building set around a large quadrangle. It was left incomplete when the royal family was forced into exile in Brazil in 1807, following the invasion of Portugal.
The palace only became a permanent residence of the royal family when Luís I became king in 1861 and married an Italian Princess, Maria Pia di Savoia. No expense was spared in furnishing the apartments, which are decorated with silk wallpaper, Sèvres porcelain and crystal chandeliers.
A prime example of regal excess is the extraordinary Saxe Room, a wedding present to Maria Pia from the King of Saxony, in which every piece of furniture is decorated with Meissen porcelain. On the first floor, the huge Banqueting Hall, with crystal chandeliers, silk-covered chairs and an allegory of the birth of João VI on the frescoed ceiling, is truly impressive. At the other end of the palace, Luís I’s Neo-Gothic painting studio is a more intimate display of intricately carved furniture.
The cost of building the spectacular Museu de Arte, Arquitetura e Tecnologia.