Jerónimos Monastery

Image: Wikimedia Commons

Before Vasco da Gama sailed for India in 1497, he and his crew kept vigil through the night in a small chapel by the Tagus, where sailors prayed before venturing into the unknown. When he came back, King Manuel I raised on that spot the church of Santa Maria de Belém and the monastery of the Hieronymite monks, begun in 1501 and paid for in large part by the pepper and spice returning from the East. Its stone is a language of its own, Manueline: ropes, anchors, knots, corals, armillary spheres and the cross of the Order of Christ climbing the portals, as if the sea itself had been carved into the walls. Inside, six slender pillars carry a vault that spans thirty meters in a single sweep, and the church survived the earthquake of 1755 when much of Lisbon fell. Vasco da Gama lies just inside the door, Luís de Camões, the poet who sang his voyage, opposite him. For five hundred years, sailors, kings and ordinary travelers have prayed here before departure, and given thanks for coming home.