{"id":1418,"date":"2018-05-10T13:16:13","date_gmt":"2018-05-10T20:16:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/?p=1418"},"modified":"2018-06-20T17:32:59","modified_gmt":"2018-06-21T00:32:59","slug":"lisboa-belem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/lisboa-belem\/","title":{"rendered":"Lisboa – Belem"},"content":{"rendered":"

Day 4 we decided to head out to Lisbon\u2019s iconic landmark, the Torre de Belem.\u00a0 It’s probably the most touristo thing to see here, so why not.\u00a0 It was a bit of a hike to the appropriate train station to take you out to Belem, and then another hike from there to the Tower.\u00a0\u00a0 On the way, we passed a festival of sorts at the Lisbon Welcome Center Plaza right on the waterfront.\u00a0 It\u2019s called Eurovision, which is a yearly music event to find the best musical acts in Europe.\u00a0 Google tells me that it\u2019s the longest-running annual international TV song competition, starting back in 1956, and the 1st<\/sup> time being held in Portugal.\u00a0 There were not huge crowds in the plaza as the main event is over by the old expo site and this was more for rehearsals, prelim-competition, and\u00a0 info area.\u00a0 Big police presence though.\u00a0 Not too many international household names competing or winning over the years, but you may have heard of ABBA and Celine Dion. \u00a0 Lots of cool stuff going on here.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"
Eurovision 2018<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

It\u2019s been hot here in Lisbon and we were already wilting before we got to Belem.\u00a0 Fortunately, it\u2019s right on the water so we got a little cooling breeze.\u00a0 And on the way we passed a couple of other landmarks, the Monastery of Jeronimos and the Monument to the Discoveries.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Belem Tower and the Jeronimos monastery were built by King Manuel I in the early 1500\u2019s as an inspiration and thank you to the brave souls leading the age of exploration.\u00a0 His architectural style, \u2018ornate, elaborate, and intertwined\u2019 (I\u2019m quoting here) is known as Manueline.\u00a0 The Tower is small, standing on the edge of the river, but back then, it was the last sight sailors saw as they left and the first as they returned, loaded with treasures.\u00a0 Interestingly, when the Tower was built, the river waters were nearly to the walls of the monastery and the Tower was sort of sitting in mid-river.\u00a0 Today, Teresa was walking around the base of it to get some \u2018shots\u2019.\u00a0 We didn\u2019t go in to check it out, or the Monastery either, which I\u2019m told contains the tomb of explorer Vasco da Gama.\u00a0 The Tower itself is stark and there is not a lot to see (other than a river view) but mostly though, the hordes are immense and the line ups for both were over an hour.\u00a0 Portugal is not making much dough off us; one could drop a pretty penny coughing up <\/span>\u20ac<\/span>10-20 euro each for admission into every little historical place.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"
Torre de Belem<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"
Monastery of Jeronimos<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Monument to the Discoveries is for a change, not an old relic.\u00a0 It was built in 1960 to honor the 500th<\/sup> anniversary of the death of Prince Henry the Navigator.\u00a0 The giant concrete structure is a fitting tribute to the men who braved the unknown and they are carved in stone standing on the pointed raised prow of a Caravel about to be launched to sea.\u00a0 At the front, leading the charge is Prince Henry holding a Caravel and a map.\u00a0 The plaza in front of the Monument has a large beautiful inlaid (in the pavement) marble map of the world, a gift from South Africa.\u00a0 At the peak of their empire, it was said one could sail from Portugal to China without losing sight of land explored by the Portuguese. \u00a0They were a filthy rich tiny nation that laid claim to the entire coastline of Africa, Arabia, India, the Philippines, and south China, plus Brazil.\u00a0 All that\u2019s really left today are the Azores and Madeiras Islands.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ok, so done with the history lessons. We were taught this stuff in school anyway but having never been here before, it\u2019s nice to see some of the history that we’ve only read about.\u00a0 We will only scratch the surface in the week we are here.\u00a0 There\u2019s too much to see and not enough time.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"
Monument to the Discoveries<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Day 4 we decided to head out to Lisbon\u2019s iconic landmark, the Torre de Belem.\u00a0 It’s probably the most touristo thing to see here, so why not.\u00a0 It was a bit of a hike to the appropriate train station to take you out to Belem, and then another hike from there to the Tower.\u00a0\u00a0 On the way, we passed a festival of sorts at the Lisbon Welcome Center Plaza right on the waterfront.\u00a0 It\u2019s called Eurovision, which is a yearly music event to find the best musical acts in Europe.\u00a0 Google tells me that it\u2019s the longest-running annual international TV song competition, starting back in 1956, and the 1st time…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1563,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1418"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1418"}],"version-history":[{"count":38,"href":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1418\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3027,"href":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1418\/revisions\/3027"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}