Jerónimos Monastery

Why go

The Royal Monastery of Santa Maria de Belém is known as the Jerónimos Monastery because it was given to the Order of St Jerome. Its operator's history page says King Manuel I granted the site at Restelo, where Prince Henry the Navigator had ordered a small chapel enlarged in 1459, to the Order of Saint Jerome, that the foundation stone was laid on 6 January 1501 or 1502, and that it was built mostly of lioz, a limestone quarried locally. Museus e Monumentos de Portugal runs it with Belém Tower, and says both have been National Monuments since 1907 and on the UNESCO World Heritage List since 1983; the shared UNESCO property is a designation, not this record. Visit Lisboa says that in the 19th century the church became the resting place of Vasco da Gama and Luís de Camões. The operator's visit page lists separate visiting times for the cloister and the church, sells the monastery ticket apart from the Belém Tower ticket, and asks visitors to buy online in advance whenever possible because tickets often sell out and cannot be bought on the day itself. It also says a kiosk opposite the monument issues physical tickets and that the monastery may close on special occasions connected with representing the Portuguese State.