The Museu de Marinha is a nautical flashback to the Age of Discoveries, with its armadas of model ships, cannonballs and shipwreck booty. Dig for buried treasure such as Vasco da Gama’s portable wooden altar, 17th-century globes (note Australia’s absence) and the polished private quarters of UK-built royal yacht Amélia. A separate building houses royal barges, 19th-century firefighting machines and seaplanes.
Museu de Marinha
Belém
Lonely Planet's must-see attractions
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Museu Calouste Gulbenkian – Coleção do Fundador
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Nearby Belém attractions
1. Museu Nacional de Arqueologia
0.08 MILES
Housed in the western wing of Mosteiro dos Jerónimos, the intriguing stash here contains mesolithic flint stones, Egyptian mummies inside elaborately…
0.13 MILES
Culture fiends can get their contemporary-art fix at Museu Coleção Berardo, the star of the Centro Cultural de Belém. The ultrawhite, minimalist gallery…
0.15 MILES
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0.24 MILES
The monolithic Padrão dos Descobrimentos, looking like a caravel ship frozen in midswell, was inaugurated in 1960 on the 500th anniversary of Henry the…
0.25 MILES
Far from the madding crowd, these botanical gardens bristle with hundreds of species, from date palms to monkey-puzzle trees. Spread across 7 hectares, it…
0.26 MILES
This museum is set in one of the remaining buildings from the 1940s Exhibition of the Portuguese World, part of the city's architectural heritage…
7. Museu da Presidência da República
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Portugal's small presidential museum is worth a look for its fascinating state gifts exhibit – note the outrageous 1957 offering from Brazil's Juscelino…
0.41 MILES
The salmon-slabbed 16th-century Belém Palace is Portugal's official presidential residence and office (though the country's previous president, Cavaco…