Morning in Belem-Lisbon- Day 2- St Patrick's Day, 2016

I have spent St. Patrick's Day in several interesting places but this year I was in Lisbon.


After breakfast we set off to Belem, just west of Lisbon proper and at the mouth of the Tagus River.


We stopped first at the beautiful gardens and went to the Belem Tower which dates from the 1500's






Here you can see the bridge The 25 de Abril Bridge, a suspension bridge which is kind of Lisbon's Golden Gate.







This plane commemorates the first trans-southern Atlantic crossing from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro in 1922 by Portuguese aviator,  Gago Coutinho 




Below is the Monument of the Discoveries that honours Portuguese involved in exploration.




It is quite a lovely monument






That honours the many Portuguese involved in The Age of Discovery, exploring the world..









The lead statute is of Henry the Navigator.  He was seen as the initiator of The Age of Discovery who died 500 years before the statute was erected in 1960.




If I had had more time I would have loved to have gone to the exhibit at the museum.



I loved the mosaic in front of the monument.  Here you can see the Compass Rose of the map of the world showing Portuguese explorations.  It was a gift from South Africa.  I think visiting Portugal was particularly interesting to me, having been in Brazil last year.



 Now to just give you a bit of the feeling to be here in Belem you can check out this video!

Our next stop was a must for anyone visiting Belem.






We had a coffee break at  Fábrica de Pasteis de Belém which creates the ultimate custard tart.







More lovely tilework







This is a store and symbol I saw throughout Spain and Portugal where you can buy gifts and accessories.





Next we were off to the Lisbon Cathedral but we were reminded it was indeed St. Patrick's Day as orderly groups of appropriately dressed school children from an international school congregated in front of the Jeronimos Monastery.  This link will give you a great deal of information about this complex.








This is a very impressive building, a UNESCO heritage site, dating from the Middle Ages.











As we were waiting to go in I just had to take another picture of those cuties.


















This monastery includes the Church of Santa Maria.



















One fascinating point of information was that the illiterate builders would often make a drawing to signify their signature on the church.















































































And this was just was our morning.


In the afternoon we headed off for more adventures!


Stay tuned!