Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
documents, and Africans in traditional garb sell gemstones from handkerchiefs spread on
sidewalks.
Lisbon, Portugal's capital, is the country's banking and manufacturing center. A port
city on the yawning mouth of the Rio Tejo (Tagus River), Lisbon welcomes large ships to
its waters and state-of-the-art dry docks. Residents call their city Lisboa (leezh-BOH-ah),
which comes from the Phoenician term
Alis Ubbo
(“calm port”).
Romans and Moors originally populated Lisbon, but the city's glory days were in the
15th and 16th centuries, when explorers such as Vasco da Gama opened new trade routes
around Africa to India, making Lisbon one of Europe's richest cities. Portugal's Age of
Discovery fueled rapid economic growth, which sparked the flamboyant art boom called
the Manueline period—named after King Manuel I (r. 1495-1521). In the 17th and 18th
centuries, the gold, diamonds, and sugarcane of Brazil (one of Portugal's colonies) made
Lisbon even wealthier.
Then, on the morning of All Saints' Day in 1755, while most of the population was at
church, a tremendous underwater earthquake occurred off the Portuguese coast. The viol-
ent series of tremors were felt throughout Europe—as far away as Finland. Two-thirds of
Lisbon was leveled. Fires—started by cooking flames and church candles—raged through
the city, and a huge tsunami caused by the earthquake blasted the waterfront. Imagine a
disaster similar to 2004's Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, devastating Portugal's
capital city. The earthquake's impact was profound, not only on Portugal, but on all of
Europe. (For more on this tragic event, see
here
.)
