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Belem, Gateway to the Colonial Empire

March 8, 2002

Dear Friends and Family,

Portugal is justifiably proud of its explorers. This small kingdom managed to send colonial expeditions to both coasts of Africa, the Atlantic coast of South America, and to the Pacific coast of China. The age of exploration made Lisbon the kingdom's greatest city and, from the docks along the Tejo River, brave hopeful ships' crews left in search of New World riches.

Today we visited the district of Belem at the western end of Lisbon's original riverfront. We started at the Belem Tower which used to sit mid-river and guard the upstream port. In the almost five centuries since it was built, the shallow riverbed has filled in so now the tower sits just off the riverbank. We walked up the old stone stairways inside the tower and were treated to a wonderful view of the broad Tejo. We were also treated to sore legs. For some reason, these several flights of stairs were particularly hard on us. But our exploring of Belem was just beginning.

The next stop was yet another tower, this time a modern monument built to honor all the people who founded and settled the colonial empire. The 32 figures around the base depict both famous explorers like Vasco de Gama and Henry the Navigator and also anonymous sailors and even natives from the colonies. An elevator and a short stairway reached this tower's viewing platform and it gave a wonderful view of the old Belem Tower as well as our next destination, the Jeronimos Monastery.

The Monastery was funded from the king's colonial riches. All goods returning through the port were assessed a five percent royal tax and this, along with profit from expeditions sponsored directly by the king, made him one of the richest monarchs in Europe. The Monastery complex has a beautiful cloister that is being painstakingly restored, again thanks to taxes.

The attached church was impressive in its elegance. The Manueline style is less severe than Romanesque, less gaudy than Rococo and considerably less depressing than some of the bone and blood churches we'd been seeing lately. Nevertheless, there were some reminders of death, most famously the crypt of Vasco de Gama, the Portuguese discoverer of what would become Brazil.

At one end of the Monastery complex is a very large Maritime Museum. We can't live on just churches and forts alone so we thought this would be a good break. In fact, the first half of the museum was beautiful room after beautiful room of glass encased examples of everything nautical, especially ship models. There were models of every description: sailing ships; steam ships; military vessels, fishing boats, freighters from all over the world. All these would be fascinating to a fan, but this definitely fell into the category of a museum that didn't know when to stop.

We walked out of the glass display area, into a courtyard with a half-dozen non-descript old fishing and rescue boats. Ahead of us was yet another building, one we would have avoided if we'd known the way out. But, inside THIS building, a plain aircraft hanger-like space, was a wonderful collection of royal barges. Not models, these were real boats from past days of royal glory. Some were hundreds of years old. The grandest of all had employed 78 oarsmen and was used as recently as the late 1970's during a court visit by Britain's Queen Elizabeth. Here were pieces of history, not just visual aids to a story of history like the ship models we'd seen earlier.

Our last stop in Belem, was the Royal Coach Museum, reportedly the most-visited museum in Portugal. Inside what were originally the royal stables, were dozens of coaches spanning hundreds of years. There were both utilitarian coaches, used to transport the royal and the rich around Portugal and Spain as well as guilded royal carriages designed to impress. We were impressed indeed both by the opulence of the show carriages and by images of coach travel on rutted dirt roads across very rugged terrain. The occasional carriage ride would not be worth the more routine coach passage.

This was a tiring but interesting day. Maybe we learned more than we needed about intrepid Portuguese explorers and extravagant Portuguese royalty, but throughout it all, we got a sense of the human scale of a part of history. That's more fun than just shards, bones, and anonymous castle walls.

Take care and think about what a small country can do.

John and Marianne

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