2 stops in walking order

Monastery

The Jerónimos Monastery or Hieronymites Monastery is a former monastery of the Order of Saint Jerome near the Tagus river in the parish of Belém, in the Lisbon Municipality, Portugal. It became the necropolis of the Portuguese royal dynasty of Aviz in the 16th century but was secularized on 28 December 1833 by state decree and its ownership transferred to the charitable institution, Real Casa Pia de Lisboa. The Jerónimos Monastery is one of the most prominent examples of the late Portuguese Gothic Manueline style of architecture in Lisbon. It was erected in the early 1500s near the launch point of Vasco da Gama's first journey, and its construction funded by a tax on the profits of the yearly Portuguese India Armadas. In 1880, da Gama's remains and those of the poet Luís de Camões (who celebrated da Gama's first voyage in his 1572 epic poem The Lusiad), were moved to new carved tombs in the nave of the monastery's church, only a few meters away from the tombs of the kings Manuel I and John III, whom da Gama had served. In 1983, the Jerónimos Monastery was classified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, along with the nearby Tower of Belém.

~20 min at this stop

Tower

Belém Tower, officially the Tower of Saint Vincent, is a 16th-century fortification located in Lisbon, Portugal, which served as a point of embarkation and disembarkation for Portuguese explorers and as a ceremonial gateway to Lisbon. The tower symbolizes Portugal's maritime and colonial power in early modern Europe. It was built during the height of the Portuguese Renaissance and is a prominent example of the Portuguese Manueline style, but it also incorporates other architectural styles, such as the minarets, which are inspired by Moorish architecture. The structure was built from lioz limestone, a material local to the Lisbon region, and is composed of a bastion and a 30-metre (100 ft) four-storey tower. Since 1983, the tower has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site, along with the Jerónimos Monastery. It is often portrayed as a symbol of Europe's Age of Discoveries and as a metonym for Portugal or Lisbon, given its landmark status. It has incorrectly been stated that the tower was built in the middle of the Tagus and now sits near the shore because the river was redirected after the 1755 Lisbon earthquake. In fact, the tower was built on a small island in the Tagus river near the Lisbon shore.

~20 min at this stop