JJ's on Tour - Portugal 2025, Lisbon, Part 1.

Wellington Landing in 1809 at Lisbon to take command in the Peninsular War - NMM
The Torre de Belém can be seen, rear-right of picture, with the Doca area to the left of picture, still used toady to facilitate the modern marina, but with much of the shoreline depicted here lost to land reclamation to build a railway in the late 19th century, extending the land out to the Torre, seen here with water on its landward side.

This previous week I was back on my travels as Carolyn and I decided to get some much needed winter sunshine in some warmer climes and jumped on a flight to Lisbon to grab a few days visiting the first and second cities in Portugal, Lisbon and Porto.

Our plan of campaign would see us spending three days in the Portuguese capital before catching a train north to Porto for a four day stay, before catching a plane home, with me keen to visit some historic sites I had missed on previous adventures to other parts of the country.

The Battle of Vimeiro, that introduced a new talented commander to challenge French Imperial hegemony over Europe, Lieutenant General Sir Arthur Wellesley, and who following this victory would return to Portugal in 1809 landing to assume command of Anglo-Portuguese forces on the 22nd April.
JJ's Wargames - Battle of Vimiero

As you can see I have headed up this post with a depiction of Lieutenant General Sir Arthur Wellesley, as he was back in 1809, arriving back in Portugal at Lisbon on the 22nd April of that year, after his victories at Rolica and Vimeiro in the previous one that saw General Junot and his French army ejected from the country under very favourable terms agreed at the Convention of Cintra that would eventually see Wellesley cleared of any wrong-doing for being a signatory to that agreement and instead effectively rewarded for his battlefield performance with command of the Anglo-Portuguese army in Portugal following the death of Sir John Moore at Corunna in January 1809.

JJ's Wargames - Peninsular War Tour 2019

The two cities of Lisbon and Porto were not included in our three week itinerary back in 2019 when Carolyn and I drove across Spain and Portugal looking at Peninsular War battlefields as we travelled, see link above, and their absence was a matter I hoped to address at a later date as they were very important places in the story of the war that developed over the years between 1809 and 1814 when the Duke of Wellington, as he would become, would press the war into Southern France.

Nicholas Pocock made this sketch of Lisbon Harbour in 1797, depicting the Torre de Belém, and the captured Spanish ships taken at the Battle of Cape St Vincent on the 14th February of that year. I was hoping to replicate this view along with Sir Arthur Wellesley's landing place in our visit in 2025.

One particular place in Lisbon I planned to visit was the Torre de Belém or Belém Tower featuring in Wellesley's landing place and just as interestingly twelve years prior with its inclusion in Nicholas Pocock's rendition of Lisbon Harbour with the captured Spanish warships taken at the Battle of Cape St. Vincent on the 14th February 1798.

The route of our cruise along the Lisbon shoreline from the Doca de Belém

So after arriving in the city the night before, we got a taxi down to the waterfront area in Belém to join our cruise out on the River Tagus to take in amongst other sights, the Torre de Belém from the land and sea to compare and contrast the view from 1797 and 1809.

Our morning rendezvous point at the Doca de Belém to join our boat. This area close to the Torre de Belém is where Wellesley is depicted landing in the picture heading the post. The land behind the Doca, which was a natural bay in previous times, was reclaimed in the late 19th century to facilitate the construction of the railway, and the waters edge would have started close to the white tower of the Jeronimos Monastery seen in the background, so the modern Lisbon has asserted itself over that of 1809.

Arriving in good time we had about thirty minutes to wonder along the river bank to explore the area before catching our boat and so naturally headed towards the Tower taking in the Monument of the Discoveries erected and inaugurated on the 9th of August 1960, with 32 ships of 14 nations present for its dedication.

The Monument of the Discoveries erected and inaugurated on the 9th of August 1960. Note the absence of the 25 de Abril Bridge, opened in 1966.

View of the Padrão dos Descobrimentos (Monument to the Discoveries) on the northern bank of the Tagus River estuary, Lisbon, Portugal, at the time of its inauguration, on 9th August 1960.

Looking along the shore in the opposite direction and up-river we could see the 25 de Abril Bridge, a suspension bridge across the Tagus, carrying road and rail traffic and modelled on the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, originally destined to have been named the Salazar Bridge (Ponte Salazar), after Portuguese Prime Minister António de Oliveira Salazar, who ordered its construction; however after the Carnation Revolution in 1974, which overthrew the remnants of Salazar's Estado Novo regime, the bridge was renamed for April 25, the date of the revolution.

The opposite direction from the Monument of the Discoveries, and up-river we could see the 25 de Abril Bridge, a suspension bridge across the Tagus, carrying road and rail traffic and modelled on the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco and opened in 1966.

Further along the bank the Torre de Belém hove into view but not before another remarkable construction of a monument capturing the look of a Fairy III floatplane, one of three such aircraft used by Portuguese naval aviators Gago Coutinho and Sacadura Cabral in 1922, to complete the first aerial crossing of the South Atlantic from Lisbon to Rio de Janiero, following John Alcock and Arthur Brown's non-stop flight crossing the North Atlantic in 1919.

The first aerial crossing of the South Atlantic was made by the Portuguese naval aviators Gago Coutinho and Sacadura Cabral in 1922, memorialised in this monument featuring a Fairy III floatplane. 

Returning to the Doca we soon met up with our boat and crew, Benny and Francisco from Palma Yachts, who welcomed us aboard to begin our cruise along the river with the best sunny weather we were to experience during our stay in Lisbon.

The design of the Monument to the Discoveries takes the form of the prow of a caravel (ship used in the early Portuguese exploration), and on either side of the slab are ramps that join at the river's edge, with the figure of Prince Henry the Navigator on its prow. On either side of the Infante, along the ramp, are 16 figures (33 in total) representing figures from the Portuguese Age of Discovery. 

These great people of the era included monarchs, explorers, cartographers, artists, scientists and missionaries, with each idealized figure designed to show movement towards the front (the unknown sea), projecting a direct or indirect synthesis of their participation in the events after Henry.

Henry the Navigator to the the fore with King Afonso V directly behind him and Vasco da Gama the third figure behind them both. 

The only woman represented on the monument is an English lady, Queen Philippa of Lancaster, the eldest child of John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster, Queen of Portugal from 1387 to 1415, and Henry the Navigator's mother, seen at the extreme left of the picture, illustrative of one of the oldest alliances established between England and Portugal.

Moving into more open water as we approached the mouth of the Tagus below Lisbon, Benny our skipper ran up the main sail, and we started to enjoy a more pleasurable cruise taking advantage of the breeze to make our way.

The Torre de Belém appeared on the starboard bow and I recalled a picture I had studied of the tower shown during its hot engagement with a French squadron of ships during the Liberal Wars or Portuguese Civil War 1828-1834 in what became known as the Battle of the Tagus.

The Battle of the Tagus was a naval engagement that took place on the 11th July 1831 at the mouth of the Tagus river, in Portugal, when a French fleet attacked and subdued Portuguese fortifications at the entrance of the Tagus, with the aim to strong-arm the government of Miguel I into recognising the newly established Kingdom of the French; the action, seeing the damage to the forts defending access to the Tagus and the arrival of French warships at Lisbon, forced the Portuguese to cave in and comply with French demands.

A moment in history as this view of the Torre de Belém appeared on the starboard bow, triggering memories of the picture above depicting French Admiral Albin Roussin's six ships of the line engaging the fortress on the 11th July 1831.

A French squadron commanded by Admiral Roussin forces entry into the Tagus, 11th July 1831 - Pierre-Julien Gilbert

On the larboard bow, across the water I could make out the distinct ruins of the Fort of Trafaria, also known as the Fort of Nossa Senhora da Saúde da Trafaria which was built in 1683 but unlike the Torre across the water, never saw action in battle, and with doubts raised about its defensive effectiveness its only real function was to prevent possible disembarkation on the left bank, later seeing its eventual use as a quarantine hospital.

The ruins of the Fort of Trafaria, also known as the Fort of Nossa Senhora da Saúde da Trafaria which was built in 1683.

The Torre de Belém officially the Tower of Saint Vincent is a 16th-century fortification that 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, and was built during the height of the Portuguese Renaissance, being a prominent example of the Portuguese Manueline style or late Gothic with the classic rope feature and wild animals discovered by Portuguese explorers carved below its battlements, but also incorporating other architectural styles, such as the minarets, which are inspired by Moorish architecture.

Since 1983, the tower has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and has incorrectly been described as having been built in the middle of the Tagus but 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 as depicted in Pocock's drawing from 1797.

As we passed the Torre on the seaward side I looked back to see the view I was after with the Tower to the left of picture and the anchorage used for the captured Spanish ships towards the opposite shore at the foot of the 25 de Abril Bridge.

At the Battle of Cape St Vincent on the 14th of February 1797, 15 British ships of the line engaged 25 Spanish that resulted in the capture of 4 Spanish ships of the line with casualties recorded as British 73 dead and 227 wounded compared with Spanish losses of 250 dead, 550 wounded and 3,000 taken prisoner.

The Battle of Cape St Vincent, 14 February 1797 - William Allen (RMG)
This picture shows the dramatic incident of the capture of the ‘San Nicolas', 80 guns, and the 'San Josef', 112 guns, with, in the left central foreground, the 'Captain', 74 guns, in starboard-bow view, commanded by Commodore Horatio Nelson, alongside the 'San Nicolas', also starboard view. Soldiers and marines pour onto the Spaniard's decks, whilst beyond the bow of the 'San Nicolas' the stern of the 'San Josef', in starboard-quarter view, is accidentally foul of (attached to) the 'San Nicolas'. Sailors fire from the stern galleries of the 'San Josef' down on to the British in the waist of the 'San Nicolas'. The fact that the two Spanish ships were hooked together prompted Nelson to lead a boarding party through the stern galleries of the 'San Josef', capturing that too, a course of action that became known as, 'Nelson's patent bridge for boarding first rates'.

Though the Spanish Navy was defeated, it was not a decisive defeat, such as the British Navy would inflict on the French in the Battle of the Nile two years later, and in its wake, looking to reform for future engagements against the British, Admiral de Cordóba was blamed for the loss, dismissed from the Spanish Navy and forbidden from the royal court.

My own interpretation of the Battle of Cape St Vincent played on the 225th anniversary of the battle at the Devon Wargames Group in 2022.
Devon Wargames Group - The Battle of Cape St Vincent 1797

After the battle the British fleet lay at Lagos Bay on the Algarve coast of Portugal, and about 3000 Spanish prisoners from the four prizes were landed, whilst Jervis resumed his blockade of the Spanish fleet in Cadiz. 

A cutter of the inshore squadron patrols off Cadiz in 1797 with the Spanish fleet blockaded within - Thomas Buttersworth

The continuation of the blockade for most of the following three years largely curtailed the use of Spanish fleet until the Peace of Amiens in 1802, and its containment together with a further reinforcement of his fleet enabled Jervis to send a squadron under Nelson back into the Mediterranean the following year; that squadron, including Saumarez's Orion, Troubridge's Culloden, and Goliath, now under Foley, re-established British command of the Mediterranean at the Battle of the Nile.

On the last day of our stay in Lisbon, Carolyn and I revisited the Torre de Belém to have a look inside, with the weather nowhere near as pleasant outside as when we took our boat trip a few days before.

Continuing  with our voyage on towards the broader estuary area of Lisbon Harbour we passed the Royal Palace of Ajuda, seen below, constructed after the earthquake and tsunami of 1755 to house the Royal family. 

Construction began in 1796 and lasted until the late 19th century, plagued by interruptions to its construction by issues such as the French invasion of the Napoleonic Wars and Genera Junot's occupation of Lisbon in 1807, causing the flight of the Royal family to Brazil, to a discontinuation in work during the Liberal Revolution of 1820 and the imposition of a constitutional monarchy, seeing the palace not finally occupied by the royals until the reign of Dom Luis I, 1861 to 1889. 

 The Royal Palace of Ajuda, seen from our boat, constructed after the earthquake and tsunami of 1755 to house the Royal family, with construction beginning in 1796.

Further along the river we passed under the mighty 25 de Abril Bridge, thrumming above us to the reverberation of traffic passing overhead and with a nice touch seen on the base of the piers, with dolphins painted, highlighting to all aboard that common dolphins are a regular sight in this part of the Tagus, and indeed a passing skipper hailed us to let us know that they were about.

Further along on the Almada cliffs we had a magnificent view of the Sanctuary of Christ the King monument and shrine dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ overlooking the city of Lisbon; inspired by the Christ the Redeemer statue of Rio de Janeiro, in Brazil, after the Cardinal Patriarch of Lisbon visited that monument, with the project inaugurated on 17th May 1959, and erected to express gratitude for the Portuguese being spared the direct destructive effects of World War II.

Now passing into the wider harbour area, our bow came back around as we headed back to the Doca and were treated with a glorious view of the old city of Lisbon, much of which was rebuilt following the devastation wrought by the earthquake and tsunami of 1755.

The Alfama, seen below is the oldest neighbourhood of Lisbon, spreading on the slope between the São Jorge Castle and the Tagus river, an area that was the only part of the old city to survive the wider destruction of the earthquake and today contains many important historical attractions, as well as an abundance of Fado bars and restaurants.

The Alfama, the oldest neighbourhood of Lisbon, with the twin towers of the Monastery of São Vicente de Fora to the left, and the baroque Church of Santa Engrácia to the right of picture.

Among the churches of the Alfama are Lisbon Cathedral (12th–14th centuries), seen below, the oldest of the city and located to the West of the neighbourhood, the Convent of the Grace (Convento da Graça, 18th century), near the Castle, and seen above, the mannerist Monastery of São Vicente de Fora (late 16th–18th century), where the Kings of the House of Braganza are buried, and the baroque Church of Santa Engrácia (17th century), now converted into a National Pantheon for important Portuguese personalities.

The twin towers of Lisbon Cathedral, 12th–14th centuries, built on the site of the Moorish mosque following their ejection from Portugal in 1249 following the fall of the city of Faro.

The Praça do Comércio or Commerce Plaza is a large, harbour-facing plaza, and is one of the largest in Portugal, with an area of 574 by 574 ft, that is, 329,000 square feet, and bringing back memories of a similar looking St Mark's Square in Venice.

Facing the Tagus to the South, the plaza is still commonly known in Portuguese as Terreiro do Paço or Palace Yard), as it hosted the Paço da Ribeira or Royal Palace of Ribeira until the latter was destroyed by the great 1755 Lisbon earthquake, devastating fire and tsunami that followed, an earthquake that had an estimated magnitude of 7.7 or greater, with its epicentre in the Atlantic Ocean about 110 nautical miles west-southwest of Cape St. Vincent, and about 160 nautical miles southwest of Lisbon, that caused an estimated death toll in Lisbon of around 30,000–40,000.

The magnificent Arco da Rua Augusta, pictured a few days after our boat trip, was built after the 1755 earthquake and construction only considered finished in 1873; and is decorated with various historical personages including Vasco de Gama and the Marques de Pombal, escorted by allegorical representations of the rivers Douro and Tagus. 

After the earthquake, the plaza was completely remodelled as part of the rebuilding of the Pombaline Downtown, ordered by Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, 1st Marquis of Pombal, who was (chief) Minister of Portugal from 1750 to 1777, during the reign of the Portuguese King José I.

Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, 1st Marquis of Pombal

From the 19th century onwards, Praça do Comércio became the seat of some of the most important Portuguese state departments, including the Ministries of Finances, Internal administration, Agriculture and Maritime Affairs, and was classified as a National Monument of Portugal in 1910.

These buildings are the headquarters of the Portuguese Ministry of Naval Defence on the site of the former Navy Arsenal.

The Navy Arsenal was a shipyard of the Portuguese Navy, located in Lisbon, and the Arsenal dated back to the Middle Ages, being initially known as Tercenas and later as Ribeira das Naus. As part of the reconstruction of downtown Lisbon after the 1755 earthquake, Ribeira das Naus was also rebuilt in the same location, and became known as the "Royal Navy Arsenal".

Many of the ships that participated in the Portuguese Discoveries were built in Ribeira das Naus. They were the largest shipyards in the Portuguese Empire, serving as a model for the others that were established overseas, including the important Ribeira das Naus in Goa and Cochin.  

Arrival of the Portuguese Royal Family, Rio de Janeiro, March, 7th 1808 - Geoff Hunt.
The Nau Príncipe Real, built at the Lisbon Navy Arsenal and which brought the Prince Regent D. João VI, to Rio de Janeiro is pictured in the foreground.

The buildings today now serve as the headquarters of the Portuguese Ministry of Naval Defence, and one of the original dry-dock construction yards has been opened up after being originally covered under a car park and I photographed the building on dry land later in our stay and on a much less sunnier day.

The beautiful old Tejo Power Station is a cultural centre that presents the evolution of energy with a Museum of Science and Industrial Archaeology concept, where themed and experimental exhibits live side by side with a great variety of cultural events.

It opened as a museum in 1990 and ten years later, the Electricity Museum's buildings and equipment underwent a period of rehabilitation, to reopen in 2006 fully renovated, and from 2016 the museum forms part of Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology.

In the second part of my look at Lisbon during our three day stay, I'll take a look at some of the items on display in the Museu de Marinha or Maritime Museum and the Museu do Combatente and the Monument to Overseas Combatants at the Fort of Bom Sucesso.

More anon

JJ