Monument and Tower of Belêm

On Thursday, our last day in Lisboa, Ruth and I set out mid morning to find a Portuguese tile designing and display store and walked for an hour or more without finding it. There was a lot of construction in the area where it is supposed to be so it was a bit disorienting. We had to be back by noon to check out of the hotel so we returned to the hotel without finding the place.

We were interested in the tile place because there is a long history in Portugal of tile production and use for decorating everything from floors to entire buildings (see second photo). John told us how to find another tile place where they design, paint and sell tiles so we did get there later in the day. I tried taking some photos of some of the tile patterns but was unable to get reasonable reproduction so have not included anything here - though we did buy a small tile - not a traditional pattern, but it was designed and painted there.

In the afternoon we went with Ev, Jean's sister, to the town of Belêm, about a 15 minute taxi ride west of downtown Lisbon. Belêm is the home of the huge sculpture Padrao dos descobrimentos, erected in 1960, 500 years after the death of Henry the Navigator, to celebrate Portuguese explorers and featuring Henry at the prow of the "ship" flanked by other famous Portuguese men, and the Tower of Belem, a World Heritage site, built about 500 years ago as part of the defense system to keep would be intruders from entering the city of Lisboa via the Rio Teja which is the entry to the harbour. The tower no longer serves that function. A couple of photos of the Tower and the monument included.

There are several other major places of interest in that same area including the enormous UNESCO World Heritage site, dos jerónimos completed, at huge expense, in 1541 and populated by the monks of the Order of St. Jerome, protector of sailors. There is also a maritime museum, an archeology museum and a carriage museum. Unfortunately, time didn't permit us to visit any of these as we had to return to Lisboa to get taxis to get us to the train station which is at least 20 minutes by taxi from our hotel in the center of the city. For more on the railway station, see the next blog.

Apologies for the poor quality of the photos - I had my small camera when we were in Belem and it is not easy to control light etc.