At Sea
In fine early evening sunshine yesterday, we sailed down the Tagus out of Lisbon in the wake of those Portuguese discoverers of half a millennium ago who succeeded in catapulting their country from provincial obscurity to first power status in the space of two generations. By early this morning we had picked up the trade winds that had brought the earliest of those discoverers to the Azores – our destination on this voyage – by the 1420s.
Those critical generations of explorers are celebrated in the confident Monument to the Discoverers (photographed) that overlooks the Tagus in Belem, a district of Lisbon that we visited yesterday where one of the few buildings in the city to have survived the 1755 earthquake is preserved, the the Jeronimoes monastery. It is a remarkable survival of the Manueline style of Portuguese architecture, an exuberant style heavily influenced by an artistic imagination intoxicated with tropical imagery. Its pillars and arcades are carved with naval ropes and tropical foliage, while elephants support the tombs of the Portuguese kings. A monument to the national poet Casoes lies opposite the tomb of Vasco da Gama, both in a place of honor inside the monastery. Following our visit to the monastery we visited the Monument to the Discoverers in front of which is a remarkable map of the Portuguese world, carved in marble on the piazza and holding out well against the assaults of twenty-first century tourists and skateboarders.
Henry the Navigator, whose bust is at the prow, understood that the fall of Constantinople to the Muslim Turks and the consequent decline of the Venetian carrying trade, was Portugal’s opportunity. He set up a school of navigation at Sagres where a series of expeditions were planned to nose along the western coast of Africa. On Christmas Day 1487, Bartholomew Diaz rounded the continent naming what he aptly described, for the fortune of his country, as the Cape of Good Hope. Hope was fulfilled ten years later when, in 1497, Vasco da Gama reached Calicut on the Indian sub-continent. By 1500, Cabral, running with the trade winds on the same Atlantic routes inadvertently discovered Brazil. A Portuguese Empire had been born that was destined to be the longest lasting of the European colonial empires: it was not dismantled until after the 25 April 1974 "Carnation Revolution" that overthrew Salazar. The Azores – still part of Portugal and now the most westerly outpost of the European Union – remained a pivotal stepping-stone for that imperial commerce. We await our arrival with keen anticipation.
In fine early evening sunshine yesterday, we sailed down the Tagus out of Lisbon in the wake of those Portuguese discoverers of half a millennium ago who succeeded in catapulting their country from provincial obscurity to first power status in the space of two generations. By early this morning we had picked up the trade winds that had brought the earliest of those discoverers to the Azores – our destination on this voyage – by the 1420s.
Those critical generations of explorers are celebrated in the confident Monument to the Discoverers (photographed) that overlooks the Tagus in Belem, a district of Lisbon that we visited yesterday where one of the few buildings in the city to have survived the 1755 earthquake is preserved, the the Jeronimoes monastery. It is a remarkable survival of the Manueline style of Portuguese architecture, an exuberant style heavily influenced by an artistic imagination intoxicated with tropical imagery. Its pillars and arcades are carved with naval ropes and tropical foliage, while elephants support the tombs of the Portuguese kings. A monument to the national poet Casoes lies opposite the tomb of Vasco da Gama, both in a place of honor inside the monastery. Following our visit to the monastery we visited the Monument to the Discoverers in front of which is a remarkable map of the Portuguese world, carved in marble on the piazza and holding out well against the assaults of twenty-first century tourists and skateboarders.
Henry the Navigator, whose bust is at the prow, understood that the fall of Constantinople to the Muslim Turks and the consequent decline of the Venetian carrying trade, was Portugal’s opportunity. He set up a school of navigation at Sagres where a series of expeditions were planned to nose along the western coast of Africa. On Christmas Day 1487, Bartholomew Diaz rounded the continent naming what he aptly described, for the fortune of his country, as the Cape of Good Hope. Hope was fulfilled ten years later when, in 1497, Vasco da Gama reached Calicut on the Indian sub-continent. By 1500, Cabral, running with the trade winds on the same Atlantic routes inadvertently discovered Brazil. A Portuguese Empire had been born that was destined to be the longest lasting of the European colonial empires: it was not dismantled until after the 25 April 1974 "Carnation Revolution" that overthrew Salazar. The Azores – still part of Portugal and now the most westerly outpost of the European Union – remained a pivotal stepping-stone for that imperial commerce. We await our arrival with keen anticipation.
