Other sights in Portugal
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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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Igreja de São Lourenço de Matos
It’s worth making a detour here, 13km northwest of Faro and about 6km south of Loulé, to visit the marvellous Igreja de São Lourenço de Matos. The church was built on the site of a ruined chapel after local people, while digging a well, had implored the saint for help and then struck water.
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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…
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Temple
Opposite the museum are the remains of a Roman temple dating from the 2nd or early 3rd century. It’s among the best-preserved Roman monuments in Portugal, and probably on the Iberian Peninsula. Though it’s commonly referred to as the Temple of Diana, there’s no consensus about the deity to which it was dedicated, and some archaeologists believe it may have been dedicated to Julius Caesar. How did these 14 Corinthian columns, capped with Estremoz marble, manage to survive in such good shape for some 18 centuries? The temple was apparently walled up in the Middle Ages to form a small fortress, and then used as the town slaughterhouse. It was uncovered late in the 19th…
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Centro de Recuperação do Lobo Ibérico
There’s no need to be afraid of the wolves at the Centro de Recuperação do Lobo Ibérico located near Malveira, 10km east of Mafra. The centre is home to a pack of around 20 wolves that can no longer live in the wild. Set in a forested valley, the centre aims to boost the rapidly dwindling numbers of Portugal’s Iberian wolf population (now just 300 in the wild) by affording them safe shelter in a near-to-natural habitat. As the wolves are free to roam in their large enclosures, there’s no guarantee that you’ll spot them, but encounters are frequent. Advance bookings are essential. The sanctuary is best reached by private transport.
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Museum
This museum is housed in a beautiful 17th-century almshouse near the former palace. Pretty hand-painted furniture sits alongside endearing, locally carved wooden figures (charming rural scenes by Joaquim Velhinho) and a collection of typical 19th-century domestic Alentejan items. On the ground floor is an amazing display of the unique Estremoz pottery figurines – some 500 pieces covering 200 years, including lots of ladies with carnivalesque outfits, explosively floral headdresses and wind-rippled dresses. There’s even an entire 19th-century Easter Parade.
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Sé
The sé, built in 1189 on the site of an earlier mosque, then rebuilt after the 1249 Reconquista and subsequently restored several times following earthquake damage. The stark, fortress-like building has a multi-arched Portuguese-Gothic doorway, and some original Gothic touches left, including the nave and aisles and a dramatically tall, strikingly simple interior. There are several fine tombs, one of which is purported to be of João do Rego, who helped to settle Madeira.
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Castelo São Filipe
The castle was built by Filipe I in 1590 to fend off an English attack on the invincible Armada. Converted into a pousada in the 1960s, its hulking ramparts afford precipitous views and its chapel is festooned in blue-and-white 18th-century azulejos depicting the life of São Filipe – you can view them through a glass wall if the door is locked. Arrive early morning and you’ll be able to watch fishermen unload their catch in the harbour below.
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Cristo Rei
Hankering for that perfect shot of Lisbon? Take the breezy commuter ferry from Terreiro do Paço Ferry Terminal to Cristo Rei. The spitting image of Rio de Janeiro’s Christ the Redeemer, the 110m-high Jesus statue was erected in 1959 to thank God for sparing Portugal from WWII horrors. A lift whizzes up to an 82m platform affording breathtaking vistas over Lisbon. Nip into the gift shop for quality kitsch such as a Day-Glo Jesus statue for the mantelpiece.
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Rossio
Simply Rossio to locals, Praça Dom Pedro IV has 24-hour buzz. Shoe-shiners and lottery ticket sellers, hash-peddlers and office workers drift across its wavelike cobbles. And these cobbles have seen it all: witch burnings and bullfights, rallies and 1974 revolution carnations. Don’t miss Brazil’s first emperor Pedro IV high on a marble pedestal and Estação do Rossio, a frothy neo-Manueline station with horseshoe-shaped arches and swirly turrets. Trains depart here for Sintra.
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Portugal dos Pequenitos
Portugal dos Pequenitos, the brainchild of local collector Bissaya Barreto, is an impossibly cute theme park where kids clamber over, into and through doll’s-house versions of Portugal’s most famous monuments, while parents clutch cameras at the ready. There’s an extra charge to visit the marginally interesting mini-museums of marine life, clothing and furniture. You can also hop aboard one of the frequent river trips with Basófias.
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Church
Évora’s best-known church is a tall and huge Manueline-Gothic structure, completed around 1510 and dedicated to St Francis. Exuberant nautical motifs celebrating the Age of Discoveries deck the walls and reflect the confident, booming mood of the time. It’s all topped by a cross of Christ’s order and dome. Legend has it that the Portuguese navigator Gil Vicente is buried here.
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José Maria da Fonseca
Wine-lovers shouldn’t miss the cellar tours of José Maria da Fonseca, the oldest Portuguese producer of table wine and Moscatel de Setúbal, in nearby Vila Nogueira de Azeitão. The winery is now run by the sixth generation of the family. Ring ahead to arrange a visit to the house and museum. From Setúbal, buses leave frequently to Vila Nogueira de Azeitão (20 minutes).
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Palácio de Queluz
Versailles’ fanciful cousin-once-removed, the powder-puff Palácio de Queluz was once a hunting lodge, converted in the late 1700s to a royal summer residence. It’s surrounded by queen-of-hearts formal gardens, with oak-lined avenues, fountains (including the Fonte de Neptuno, ascribed to Italian master Bernini) and an azulejo -lined canal where the royals went boating.
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Gardens
Legend says Dona Inês de Castro met her grisly end in the gardens of this private estate. It’s now a deluxe hotel, although anyone can take a turn about the gardens and track down the Fonte dos Amores (Lovers’ Fountain), which marks the spot where the king’s unwitting mistress was struck down. Also note the sequoia tree planted by English hero the Duke of Wellington.
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Jardim Botânico da Ajuda
Seek solace in Jardim Botânico da Ajuda northeast of Belém. Dating to 1768, Lisbon’s oldest botanical garden is ideal for a languid stroll with its gurgling fountains, manicured baroque parterres and mythical sculptures. Weave past lofty palms and bougainvillea, explore glasshouses nurturing ferns and orchids, or simply kick back on the lawns affording sublime views over Belém to the river.
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Praça da Figueira
Praça da Figueira is framed by whizzing traffic and Pombaline townhouses. At its centre rises gallant King João I, once celebrated for his 15th-century discoveries in Africa, now targeted by pigeons and gravity-defying skateboarders – that’s justice for you. Take a seat at one of the pavement cafes for cake, sunshine and perfect snapshots of Castelo de São Jorge.
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Gothic Church
This 13th-century Gothic church, beside the castle, was built on the site of a Moorish mosque but rebuilt by an Italian neoclassicist following earthquake damage 500 years later. However, the architect retained traces of the former church – namely the main doorway, two side chapels and Arabic-style windows in the clock tower.
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Church of St John the Evangelist
The small, fabulous Church of St John the Evangelist, which faces the Templo Romano, was founded in 1485 by one Rodrigo Afonso de Melo, count of Olivença and the first governor of Portuguese Tangier, to serve as his family’s pantheon. It’s still privately owned, by the Duques de Cadaval, and notably well kept.
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Sé Cathedral
Évora’s cathedral looks like a fortress, with two stout granite towers. It was begun around 1186, during the reign of Sancho I, Afonso Henriques’ son – there was probably a mosque here before. It was completed about 60 years later. The flags of Vasco da Gama’s ships were blessed here in 1497.
You enter the cathedral through a portal flanked by 14th-century stone apostles, flanked in turn by asymmetrical towers and crowned by 16th-century roofs. Inside, the Gothic influence takes over. The chancel, remodelled when Évora became the seat of an archdiocese, represents the only significant stylistic change since the cathedral was completed. Golden light filters…
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Church
Built in the 1540s, this church is the Algarve’s most important Renaissance monument, with a magnificent carved, arched doorway topped by statues of Nossa Senhora da Misericórdia, São Pedro and São Paulo. The church’s stone mason, André Pilarte, also worked on Mosteiro dos Jerónimos.
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Fortress
Blank, hulking and prisonlike, Sagres’ fortress has a forbidding front wall balanced by two mighty bastions. Inside, a few buildings dot the vast, open expanse, but otherwise a visit here is mostly about the striking views over the sheer cliffs, and all along the coast to Cabo de São Vicente.
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Parish Church
This elegant parish church – also known as the sé – dates back to the 15th century, although it has since been through several reincarnations. Check out its unusually sculpted Romanesque towers and Gothic doorway, carved with figures of Christ and the Evangelists.
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Torre da Tavira
The Torre da Tavira, which was formerly the town’s water tower (100m), now houses a camera obscura. A simple but ingenious object, the camera obscura reveals a 360-degree panoramic view of Tavira, its monuments and local events, in real time – all while you are stationary.
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Cloister
The cool cloister is an early-14th-century addition. Downstairs are the stone tombs of Évora’s last four archbishops. At each corner of the cloister a dark, circular staircase (at least one will be open) climbs to the top of the walls, from where there are good views.
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