Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
LISBON
POP 580,000
History
Imperial riches, fires, plague, Europe's worst recorded earthquake, revolutions, coups and a
dictatorship - Lisbon has certainly had its ups and downs.
It's said that Ulysses was here first, but the Phoenicians definitely settled here 3000
years ago, calling the city Alis Ubbo (Delightful Shore). Others soon recognised its qualit-
ies: the Greeks, the Carthaginians and then, in 205 BC, the Romans, who stayed until the
5th century AD. After some tribal chaos, the city was taken over by North African Moors
in 714. They fortified the city they called Lissabona and fended off the Christians for 400
years.
But in 1147, after a four-month siege, Christian fighters (mainly British crusaders) under
Dom Afonso Henriques captured the city. In 1255, Afonso III moved his capital here from
Coimbra, which proved far more strategic given the city's excellent port and central posi-
tion.
In the 15th and 16th centuries Lisbon boomed as the opulent centre of a vast empire after
Vasco da Gama found a sea route to India. The party raged on into the 1800s, when gold
was discovered in Brazil. Merchants flocked to the city, trading in gold, spices, silks and
jewels. Frenzied, extravagant architecture held up a mirror to the era, as seen in Manueline
works such as Belém's Mosteiro dos Jerónimos.
