Lisbon: The Age of Discovery

“The sea with an end can be Greek or Roman. The endless sea is Portuguese”, wrote the poet Fernando Pessoa.

Lisbon is a maritime city rich in history, architecture and stories. This audio tour will take you through the hallmarks of the Portuguese Age of Discovery, a fascinating time of kings, explorers, writers and navigators. This was a time steeped in adventure. From periods of discovery to periods of autocracy. You'll hear about Estado Novo, the autocratic regime of the 1940's. Find out how they redesigned the Belém district to represent a romanticized idealization of the Portuguese Exploration.

The tour starts at Afonso de Albuquerque Square, beside the pink-hued Belém Palace, home to Portugal's president. You'll wind through Belém Garden, once a harbour from which the royal family fled to Brazil in 1807, and past the original Pastéis de Belém bakery, famous for its custard tarts since 1837. From there, you'll reach the Jerónimos Monastery, where navigators once prayed before their voyages.

You'll study the Monument to the Discoveries, where thirty-two statues honor figures like Vasco da Gama and Ferdinand Magellan, and the Compass Rose, a pavement map tracing Portugal's exploration routes. Along the waterfront, you'll spot the Christ the King monument and the 25th of April Bridge before reaching the final stop. The tour ends at Belém Tower, a UNESCO-listed fortress blending Manueline carvings with Moorish-style watchtowers.

On this 60-minute tour, you'll have a chance to:

• Spot the two oxen sculptures outside the Museum of Popular Art, built for the 1940 World Exhibition
• Read verses by poets Luís de Camões and Fernando Pessoa inscribed along the waterfront bike path
• Find out how the 1940 Great Portuguese World Exhibition reshaped Belém under Salazar's dictatorship
• Photograph the small red-brick lighthouse marking where the Tejo River meets the Atlantic
• Pass Avenida Brasília and Avenida da Índia, named for Portugal's former overseas territories
• Learn how the caravel, a lighter, faster ship, let Portuguese sailors navigate into the wind

Journey into Portuguese maritime history, and find out how a tiny country on the western edge of Europe became the world's first superpower.