Museum sights in Portugal
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Castelo de São Jorge
Towering dramatically above Lisbon, the hilltop fortifications of Castelo de São Jorge sneak into almost every snapshot. These smooth cobbles have seen it all – Visigoths in the 5th century, Moors in the 9th century, Christians in the 12th century, royals from the 14th to 16th centuries, and convicts in every century. Roam its snaking ramparts and pine-shaded courtyards for superlative views over the city’s red rooftops to the river.
reviewed
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Igreja de São Roque
The plain facade of 16th-century Jesuit Igreja de São Roque belies its dazzling interior of gold, marble and Florentine azulejos – bankrolled by Brazilian riches. Its star attraction is Capela de São João Baptista, to the left of the altar, a lavish confection of amethyst, alabaster, lapis lazuli and Carrara marble. Its four mosaics depicting scenes from the saint’s life are as elaborate as oil paintings. Portugal’s extravagant king, Dom João V, had the chapel built in Rome in 1742, then shipped it over to Lisbon for a cool UK£225,000.
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Museu Acadêmico
The Museu Acadêmico, just uphill from Largo Dom Dinis, has some interesting displays on Coimbra student life, including vintage Queima das Fitas posters from decades past (especially noteworthy is the 27 May 1926 poster showing hordes of student revellers one day before the coup d’état that ushered in the Salazar era). The museum is also adorned with some grand azulejos (hand-painted tiles).
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Pavilhão do Conhecimento
Kids won’t grumble about science at the interactive Pavilhão do Conhecimento, where they can launch hydrogen rockets, don spacesuits for a walking-on-the-moon experience and get dizzy on a high-wire bicycle. Budding physicists have fun whipping up tornadoes and blowing massive soap bubbles, while tots run riot in the adult-free unfinished house.
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Museu Calouste Gulbenkian
Chief must-see is the eclectic, brilliant collection of the Museu Calouste Gulbenkian. One of Europe's unsung treasures, this museum, set in a sleek 1960s building, houses more than 6000 pieces spanning major epochs of Western and Eastern art. Idyllic gardens surround the space, and touch-screens provide information on some of the museum's works.
The 1500 pieces on permanent display include an exquisite 2700-year-old alabaster bowl, a 2400-year-old Attic vase, luminescent Roman glassware, 16th- and 17th-century Turkish faïence glowing with brilliant greens and blues and Armenian manuscripts.
European Art sweeps from medieval ivories and jewel-like manuscripts to 15th- to…
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Museu de Arte Contemporânea
In a leafy, upscale suburb off the grand Avenida Boavista, is Porto's other great work of contemporary architecture. Designed by eminent, Porto-based architect Álvaro Siza Vieira, the Museu de Arte Contemporânea is an arrestingly minimalist construction of vast, whitewashed spaces bathed in natural light.
Most of the museum is devoted to cutting edge exhibitions, though there's also a fine permanent collection featuring works from the late 1960s to the present by the likes of Georg Baselitz, Ed Ruscha and Gerhard Richter. Nearby is Casa de Serralves, a pink 1930s Art Deco mansion that served as the original museum and is now an exhibition space. Surrounding it all is th…
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Sé
The sé was completed in 1251, on what was probably the site of a Roman temple, then a Visigoth cathedral and then a Moorish mosque. Only the tower gate and several chapels remain of the original Romanesque-Gothic exterior – the rest was devoured in 1755. It was rebuilt in a polygamy of Gothic, Renaissance and baroque styles, with intense gilded carving alongside elaborate tilework inside. The baroque organ is worth noting. Climb up to the rooftop miradouro (lookout) for views across the pretty walled town to the sea. If you’re lucky, you might see storks nesting in the bell towers. The cathedral buildings also house the Museu Capitular, with an assortment of sacred a…
reviewed
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Museu Calouste Gulbenkian
Famous for its outstanding quality and breadth, Museu Calouste Gulbenkian showcases an epic collection of Western and Eastern art. The chronological romp kicks off with highlights such as gilded Egyptian mummy masks, Mesopotamian urns, elaborate Persian carpets and Qing porcelain (note the grinning Dogs of Fo). Going west, art buffs bewonder masterpieces by Rembrandt (Portrait of an Old Man), Van Dyck and Rubens (including the frantic Loves of the Centaurs ). Be sure to glimpse Rodin’s passionate Spring Kiss. The grand finale is the collection of exquisite René Lalique jewellery, including the otherworldly Dragonfly. Don’t miss the free classical concerts at noon on Su…
reviewed
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Museu Nacional Soares Dos Reis
A short walk west of Cordoaria lands you at Museu Nacional Soares dos Reis. The town’s most comprehensive art collection, it ranges from Neolithic carvings to Portugal’s take on modernism and is housed in the formidable Palácio das Carrancas. Requisitioned by Napoleonic invaders, the neoclassical palace was abandoned so rapidly that the future Duke of Wellington found an unfinished banquet in the dining hall. Transformed into a museum of fine and decorative arts in 1940, its best works date from the 19th century, including sculpture by António Soares dos Reis (see especially his famous O Desterrado, The Exile) and António Teixeira Lopes, and the naturalistic paintin…
reviewed
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Museu Do Oriente
Lisbon’s new kid on the dock is the stunning Museu do Oriente, highlighting Portugal’s ties with Asia from colonial baby steps in Macau to ancestor worship. The cavernous museum occupies a revamped 1940s bacalhau warehouse. Strikingly displayed in pitch-black rooms, the permanent collection focuses on Portuguese presence in Asia, and Asian gods. Standouts on the 1st floor feature rare Chinese screens and Ming porcelain, plus East Timor curiosities such as the divining conch and delicately carved umbilical-cord knives. Upstairs, cult classics include peacock-feathered effigies of Yellamma (goddess of the fallen), Vietnamese medium costumes and an eerie, faceless Nepale…
reviewed
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Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga
Set in a lemon-fronted, 17th-century palace, the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga is Lapa’s biggest draw. It presents a star-studded collection of European and Asian paintings and decorative arts. Keep an eye out for highlights such as Nuno Gonçalves’ naturalistic Panels of São Vicente, Dürer’s St Jerome, Lucas Cranach’s haunting Salomé and Courbet’s bleak Snow. Other gems include golden wonder the Monstrance of Belém, a souvenir from Vasco da Gama’s second voyage, and 16th-century Japanese screens depicting the arrival of the namban (southern barbarians), namely big-nosed Portuguese explorers.
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Museu Municipal
Faro’s domed and splendid 16th-century Renaissance Convento de Nossa Senhora da Assunção, in what was once the Jewish quarter, houses the Museu Municipal, formerly called the Museu Arqueológico. Highlights are the 3rd-century Mosaic of the Ocean, found in 1976 on a building site; 9th- to 13th-century domestic Islamic artefacts; and works by a notable Faro painter, Carlos Filipe Porfírio, depicting local legends. Ask for the informative pamphlets in English about some of the exhibits, including the interesting Paths of the Roman Algarve, an atmospheric display of large rocks and plinths, and Walks Around the Historic Centre (The Inward Village).
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Museu Colecção Berardo
Culture fiends get their contemporary art fix for free at Museu Colecção Berardo, the latest addition to the Centro Cultural de Belém. The ultrawhite, minimalist gallery displays billionaire José Berardo’s eye-popping collection of abstract, surrealist and pop art. Don’t miss Warhol’s blue-eyed girl Judy Garland, Lichtenstein’s utterly dotty Interior with Restful Painting, Paula Rego’s magical realism in The Barn and Magritte’s fantastical The Silvery Chasm. Outside in the sculpture park, Niki de Saint Phalle’s buxom Swimmers hog the limelight.
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Museu do Design
This superlative design museum, in the Centro Cultural de Bel�m, displays furniture and product design from the 1930s to the present. This very cool collection features the masters - Capelo, Panton, Gehry, Starck, Newson and the Eames - and there are frequent temporary shows, as well as a decent bookshop.
Not only are these beautiful, humorous pieces of design, but the museum also puts their development in a social context. The contest for the most uncomfortable-looking chair is also impressive, but we think Philippe Starck's WW stool has the edge. Other halls feature changing modern art exhibitions. There's an excellent bookshop and disabled access.
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Archaeological Museum
The new archaeological museum houses a nicely displayed collection of fragments from Braga’s earliest days. The four rooms feature pieces from Palaeolithic times (arrowheads, funerary objects and ceramics) through the days of Roman rule (when Braga was known as Bracara Augusta) and on up to the period dominated by the Suevi-Visigoth kingdom (5th through 7th centuries). The most fascinating pieces are the huge miliários (milestones), carved with Latin inscriptions, that marked the Roman roads. There is also a section of mosaic flooring recovered from a local site, which dates from the 1st century AD.
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Museu Nacional do Azulejo
The Museu Nacional do Azulejo. Housed in a sublime 16th-century convent, the museum covers the entire azulejo spectrum, from early Ottoman geometry to zinging altars, scenes of lords a-hunting to Goan intricacies. Star exhibits feature a 36m-long panel depicting pre-earthquake Lisbon, a Manueline cloister with weblike vaulting and exquisite blue-and-white azulejos, and a gold-smothered baroque chapel. Bedecked with food-inspired azulejos – ducks, pigs and the like – the restaurant opens onto a vine-clad courtyard. For more on azulejos, see p62.
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Museu de Évora
Adjacent to the cathedral, in what used to be the archbishop's palace (built in the 16th century), is the elegant Museu de Évora. Fragments of old Roman and Manueline statuary and façades line the courtyard, which has been excavated to reveal Visigothic, Roman and medieval remains. In polished rooms upstairs are former Episcopal furnishings and a gallery of Flemish paintings.
Most memorable is Life of the Virgin, a striking 13-panel series that was originally part of the cathedral's altarpiece, created by anonymous Flemish artists, most or all of them working in Portugal around 1500.
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Museu do Brinquedo
Sintra’s toy story is Museu do Brinquedo. João Arbués Moreira’s fascinating 20,000-piece collection presents a chronological romp, from 3000-year-old Egyptian stone counters to a 1999 Barbie Burberry. Standouts feature vintage Barbies from a more demure, housewifely era and archrival Sindy dolls. Also note tin soldiers used to drum up Nazi support, WWII Action Men, penny toys and Japanese kokeshi wooden dolls. On the 3rd floor is a toy-repair workshop, where a man sits studiously working in a glass case, beside a bizarre tray of disembodied heads.
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Municipal Museum
An 18th-century aristocrat’s palace is now home to the enthusiastic municipal museum, with a nice collection of Roman relics and 17th- to 19th-century pottery and furnishings. The palace itself is the reason to come, with its polychrome, chestnut-panelled ceilings and 18th-century azulejos depicting hunting scenes. The ground floor is paved with deeply ribbed flagstones on which carriages would have once rattled through to the stables. The mazelike gardens at the rear also warrant a visit.
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Museu Municipal de Arqueologia
The impressiveMuseu Municipal de Arqueologia is well laid-out . In the centre is a well-preserved 4m-wide, 18m-deep Moorish well surrounded by a spiral staircase, which was discovered during excavations. The find, together with other archaeological discoveries in the area, led to the establishment of the museum on this site; it shows prehistoric, Roman and Moorish antiquities. One wall is of glass, showing a section of the fort wall (also of Almohad origin) that is used to support the building.
reviewed
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Panteão Nacional
Perched high and mighty above Graça’s Campo de Santa Clara, the porcelain-white Panteão Nacional is a baroque beauty. Originally intended as a church, it now pays homage to Portugal’s heroes and heroines, including 15th-century explorer Vasco da Gama and fadista Amália Rodrigues. Lavishly adorned with pink marble and gold swirls, its echoing dome resembles an enormous Fabergé egg. Trudge up to the 4th-floor viewpoint for a sunbake and vertigo-inducing views over Alfama and the river.
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Centro de Arte Moderna
Situated in a sculpture-dotted garden alongside Museu Calouste Gulbenkian, the Centro de Arte Moderna reveals a stellar collection of 20th-century Portuguese and international art, including works by David Hockney, Anthony Gormley and José de Almada Negreiros. Feast your eyes on gems like Paula Rego’s warped fairytale Proies Wall and Sonia Delaunay’s geometrically bold Chanteur Flamenco. There’s also a well-stocked bookshop and garden cafe.
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Museu da Cortiça
The Museu da Cortiça is housed in the Fábrica do Inglês (English Factory), a large complex, unashamedly catering to large groups. The museum, with the former workshops, machine room and press room, has good bilingual displays on the process and history of cork production. Cork was a major industry in Silves for 150 years, until the factory’s closure in the mid-1990s, largely due to the silting-up of the Rio Arade.
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Museu de Arte Moderna
The world-class Museu de Arte Moderna hosts rotating exhibitions covering the entire modern art spectrum – from kinetic and pop art to surrealism and expressionism. Sheltering Hockney, Lichtenstein and Warhol originals, the permanent collection is part of billionaire José Berardo’s stash, which also graces the walls of Museu Colecção Berardo. Exhibits change frequently because of space limitations.
reviewed
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Museu Municipal
The 18th-century Palacete Barbosa Maciel, home of the museu municipal, bears witness to Viana’s affluent past. It houses an impressive collection of 17th- and 18th-century ceramics (especially blue Portuguese china) and furniture. Most impressive are three 2nd-floor rooms lined with azulejos, depicting scenes of hunting, palace life and the anthropomorphic allegory of the four continents.
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