Lisbon
We sailed up the Tagus river towards Lisbon in the early morning through autumnal mist which obscured even Europe’s second largest suspension bridge - it has been piped by the bridge over the Bosporus, it seems. Over breakfast, the mist lifted to reveal a city sitting on its seven hills as proudly as Rome.
And the comparison is not far-fetched. For Lisbon was catapulted from provincial obscurity to first power status at the end of the fifteenth century by a visionary leader and a band of intrepid explore-navigators, celebrated in the exuberant Monument to the Discoverers (photographed). Henry the Navigator, whose bust is at the prow, understood that the fall of Constantinople to the Muslim Turks and the consequent decline of the Venetian carrying trade, was Portugal’s opportunity. He set up a school of navigation at Sagres where a series of expeditions were planned to nose along the west coast of Africa. On Christmas Day 1487, Bartholomew Diaz rounded the continent naming at what he aptly described, for the fortune’s of his country as the Cape of Good Hope. Hope was fulfilled ten years later when in 1497 Vasco da Gama reached Calicut on the Indian sub-continent. By 1500, Cabral, running with the trade winds on the same Atlantic routes inadvertently discovered Brazil. The Portuguese Empire had been born.
The exotic world of the tropics captivated and inspired Portugal’s artists and writers. The national poet Casoes lies with Vasco da Gama in a place of honor inside the Jeronimos monastery, itself a remarkable survival of the Manuelline style after the 1755 earthquake, which destroyed so much of the medieval city. Its pillars and arcades are carved with tropical foliage and elephants support the altars. Following our tour of the monastery we visited the Monument to the Discoverers in front of which is a remarkable map of the Portuguese world, carved in marble on the piazza and holding out well against the assaults of twenty-first century tourists and skateboarders.
We sailed up the Tagus river towards Lisbon in the early morning through autumnal mist which obscured even Europe’s second largest suspension bridge - it has been piped by the bridge over the Bosporus, it seems. Over breakfast, the mist lifted to reveal a city sitting on its seven hills as proudly as Rome.
And the comparison is not far-fetched. For Lisbon was catapulted from provincial obscurity to first power status at the end of the fifteenth century by a visionary leader and a band of intrepid explore-navigators, celebrated in the exuberant Monument to the Discoverers (photographed). Henry the Navigator, whose bust is at the prow, understood that the fall of Constantinople to the Muslim Turks and the consequent decline of the Venetian carrying trade, was Portugal’s opportunity. He set up a school of navigation at Sagres where a series of expeditions were planned to nose along the west coast of Africa. On Christmas Day 1487, Bartholomew Diaz rounded the continent naming at what he aptly described, for the fortune’s of his country as the Cape of Good Hope. Hope was fulfilled ten years later when in 1497 Vasco da Gama reached Calicut on the Indian sub-continent. By 1500, Cabral, running with the trade winds on the same Atlantic routes inadvertently discovered Brazil. The Portuguese Empire had been born.
The exotic world of the tropics captivated and inspired Portugal’s artists and writers. The national poet Casoes lies with Vasco da Gama in a place of honor inside the Jeronimos monastery, itself a remarkable survival of the Manuelline style after the 1755 earthquake, which destroyed so much of the medieval city. Its pillars and arcades are carved with tropical foliage and elephants support the altars. Following our tour of the monastery we visited the Monument to the Discoverers in front of which is a remarkable map of the Portuguese world, carved in marble on the piazza and holding out well against the assaults of twenty-first century tourists and skateboarders.
