Belém

This belongs in line with my other blogs from Portugal, I just got too caught up as soon as I returned so there’s a little time gap. Belém is an area down along the shore from Lisbon. It was about 45 minutes on one of the old fashioned trolleys.

We started at the Muesu Nacional de Arqueologia. We got a triple pass that was only 8 euros with my students ID to go to three of the museums in the area. The museum was attached in the same building as the Mosteiro Dos Jerónimos.

The museum was kind of strange inside. It was weirdly small with not much fascinating. All the statues were headless. Each piece was titled simply what it was… the “jewels” were simply titled (in translation) “necklace”, “bracelet”, etc. And there was also this creepy man hiding in the corner. He looked like a statue but scared the crap out of everyone walking by. He denied me a picture.

Next door was the Jerónimos Monastery. You can go into the opening of the chapel and see the amazing art.

The third and (what we found to be) final door was into the actual monastery and was part of the 3 way pass we originally bought. This part was a little more worth the money.

We got lunch by recommendation at Pasteis de Belem, a very famous bakery (especially for my favorite Pastel de Nata’s).

As good as they were… I think I liked the little cafe in the random alley’s better. Next we crossed the street and went to Padrão dos Descrobimentos, a monument with a park and fountain. The wind was also really rough at the time (rainstorm later) so I tried to capture how the fountain water was being sprayed all over.

Along the ocean we walked down to the Torre de Belém (Belem Tower). The last third of the ticket got us into this lighthouse. It was okay, not totally worth it if I had to pay more but it was pretty neat inside and the view was great.

Last but not least on our way back we stopped at the Mercardo da Ribeira. Since it was later in the day we thought we had missed the food. There was this massive room with only one stall left to even see them clean up the food.