Lisbon, Portugal
We spent approximately 4 days in Lisbon and the surrounding area with our tour group visiting churches, palaces, museums and neighborhoods. Lisbon's history goes back to the Romans and the Moors, like most of the Med, but the glory days were the 15th and 16th centuries when her explorers like Vasco de Gama opened new trade routes around Africa to India, making Lisbon a very wealthy city. This period of exploration and expansion fueled Portugal's flamboyant art style Manueline - named after King Manuel I (ruled 1495-1521). In the 18th century gold and diamonds from Brazil, made Lisbon even richer.
Everything changed on All Saints' Day 1755 when everyone was in church, Lisbon was the epicenter of a gigantic earthquake - felt as far away as Ireland! Two thirds of the city was leveled, fires raged out of control, a tidal wave blasted the waterfront. Thirty thousand of 270,000 people died. Under the leadership of Prime Minister Marques de Pombal, who had the city planned within a month of the quake, Lisbon was rebuilt on a modern grid system, with broad avenues and large squares. Bits of the old city are still found in the Arab quarter (the Alfama) and in Bairro Alto. Today is Lisbon is a clean, modern city with excellent museums, a castle on a hill, and lovely haunting music. And it was relatively inexpensive!