We are in Belem
Tina McInerney
A suburb about 5 kms from Lisboa. This was tram trip but a very flat ride. Sunday morning so we went to Mass in the Jeronomos Monastery in Belem. The monastery including the church is huge, 300meters long, belonged to the order of St Jerome. It is a World Heritage site so pretty impressive. Vasco de Gama is buried here.
inside the church. There are so many ridiculously big churches in this part of the world and so much gold leaf - it quite takes your breath away! Later in the day there was a choir practicing in the church and the sound was magnificent
This is the cloister next to the church - very beautiful. You can see how ornate it is. The tiling is so lovely. It is everywhere.
This is the refectory.
The next place we visited in Belem was the coach Museum. The queen could see what was going to happen with the onset of the car so she saved all her coaches -and anyone else’s who wanted to hand them over. They were majestic as they would be if they belonged to a queen! The English queens carriage looks a bit pathetic in comparison!
After all that opulence, we then climbed aboard a little ferry and went for a trip not a salubrious port on the other side but gave another view to the monuments on the Lisbon side. And there were quite a few things to visit in the day trip. They seem to go in for lots of monuments in this part of the world - meaning Europe. And there are large museums too.
The next couple of photos are to celebrate the discoveries made by the Portuguese explorers who mad the country extremely rich but unfortunately, no planning and the country consequently went to the pack. And since the war they had a pretty awful dictator who didn’t do the country much good.
and that was that day. We went home and had a beautiful piece of fish bought from the shop next to the bottom of the stairs. The purchase was a bit of an experience. They lady sawed of 2 bits of salmon, wiped her hands on her apron, fossicked around for change which was quite fishy at the end. Delicious fish though!