Belém Tower (Torre de Belém): The Guardian of the Tagus

Why is it significant?

Walk across the wooden footbridge over the sandy tidal flats and gaze up at the fairytale fortress of Belém Tower rising out of the water.

Key Facts

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Walk across the wooden footbridge over the sandy tidal flats and gaze up at the fairytale fortress of Belém Tower rising out of the water. Commissioned by King Manuel the First and completed in fifteen nineteen by architect Francisco de Arruda, this four-story limestone bastion was built on a rocky basalt outcrop in the middle of the Tagus to guard Lisbon's harbor with heavy naval cannons.

Notice the ornate Manueline architectural details: ribbed stone ropes encircling the parapets, armillary spheres, and Moorish-inspired domed bartizan watchtowers. On the western base of the tower, look closely at the gargoyle: it is sculpted in the shape of a rhinoceros head! It commemorates a live Indian rhinoceros gifted by the Sultan of Cambay to King Manuel in fifteen fifteen, the very first rhinoceros seen in Europe since Roman antiquity, famously sketched by German artist Albrecht Dürer.

In later centuries, when coastal silt shifted the shoreline and left the island tower connected to the mainland, its lower artillery vaults were turned into grim subterranean dungeons, where political prisoners were submerged to their waists during high tides.

Walk past the tower onto the wide green lawns of Jardim da Torre de Belém.