Page 49 - WINE DINE AND TRAVEL MAGAZINE SUMMER 2023 LISBON EDITION

The church is one of the great triumphs of
Portuguese gothic architecture and a UNESCO
World Heritage monument. Built near docks on
the Tagus River, where navigators and explor-
ers set sail for unknown lands, it marks the site
of a small hermitage where Vasco da Gama and
his crew spent their last night in Portugal in
prayer before leaving for India.
The church, made of locally quarried lime-
stone and marble, is massive, crowned by a
dome that is a marvel for its time and still to-
day. Just inside is the elaborate tomb of Vasco
da Gama. It was not the explorer’s first resting
place. In 2018, we visited the site of his first
burial in St. Francis Church in Kochi, India. They
returned his remains (or parts of them) to Por-
tugal in 1539.
Our Belem tour also included the somewhat
controversial Discoveries Monument, originally
a temporary structure glorifying Prince Henry
the Navigator and other Portuguese explorers
for the propagandistic 1940 “Portuguese World
Exhibition.” Rebuilt in concrete and limestone
in 1960, it remains a grand symbol of Portugal’s
“Age of Discovery” feats that ignores the conse-
quences of Portuguese colonization and slave
trading - a history the country continues to
reckon with. However, there are no plans to
tear the imposing monument down.
When you visit, take a moment to peruse the
map imposed on the concrete square where the
monument sits. It shows how far and where
Portuguese explorers ventured in the 1500s -

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