Cruising Along to Lisbon

Cruising along the Tagus River heading to our port in Lisbon we passed by the The Discoveries Monument. This is the daytime view with the crowds... more

by Lucinda Walter

Title

Cruising Along to Lisbon

Artist

Lucinda Walter

Medium

Photograph - Photography, Digital Art, Fine Art

Description

Cruising along the Tagus River heading to our port in Lisbon we passed by the The Discoveries Monument. This is the daytime view with the crowds starting to discover this monument.

The Discoveries Monument was built in Lisbon in honor of the great Henry the Navigator, who led Portugal’s discovery expeditions into the New World during the 15th century.

The Monument
The fifty meter (171ft) tall monument, shaped like a ship's prow, stands at the marina in Belém, the starting point for many of Portugal's explorers. This is where in 1497 Vasco da Gama embarked on his voyage to India and in Monument to the Discoveries seen from the Tagus river 1493 a storm forced Christopher Columbus to anchor here on his way back to Spain after his discovery of the Americas.

The monument shows more than thirty statues of people who played an important role in the discoveries. Leading the way is Henry the Navigator who is shown standing on the bow holding a model of a caravel. Behind him are king Afonso V - who supported the exploration and colonization of Africa - and the explorers Vasco da Gama (who found a direct route to India), Pedro Álvares Cabral (discoverer of Brazil) and Ferdinand Magellan (the first explorer to circumnavigate the world). They are followed by navigators, writers, missionaries, a mathematician, a map maker and other figures from the era of the discoveries.
http://www.aviewoncities.com/lisbon/padraodosdescobrimentos.htm

Tagus River, Portuguese Rio Tejo, Spanish Río Tajo, longest waterway of the Iberian Peninsula. It rises in the Sierra de Albarracín of eastern Spain, at a point about 90 miles (150 km) from the Mediterranean coast, and flows westward across Spain and Portugal for 626 miles (1,007 km) to empty into the Atlantic Ocean near Lisbon. Its drainage basin of 31,505 square miles (81,600 square km) is only exceeded on the peninsula by that of the Ebro River, to the northeast. The Tagus covers the heart of Portugal and Spain and has been of vital importance to the modern economic development of the two nations.

All images are copyright © Lucinda Walter. The materials contained may not be reproduced, copied, edited, published, transmitted or downloaded in any way, shape or form. All rights are reserved. Copying, altering, displaying or redistribution of any of these images without written permission from the Artist is strictly prohibited.

Uploaded

June 20th, 2014