The main museums to visit in Lisbon
Lisbon offers a number of museums to visit quite recommendable. If you go to the Portuguese capital, it is practically obligatory to go to one of the best museums on the long list that the city has to offer.
We already talked about the first of them, the Fado Museum, in a previous article.
Here we make a small list of those that we think are the best but surely you would recommend another one, which one?
The most famous, the Fado Museum
One of the museums that can be visited is the Museu do Fado, where the visitor will discover a very important part of Portuguese culture and how tradition and society have considerably influenced that unique style of music that is so typically Portuguese.
In addition, you can find a huge collection of instruments and exhibitions of photographs and publications to contextualize the history of fado.
Official page: Fado Museum.
National Museum of Ancient Art
Another interesting museum that would bring us closer to a cultural point of view is the National Museum of Ancient Art.
In Portugal it is the most important museum of art from the 12th to the 19th centuries.
In it we will find a huge compilation of sculptures, paintings and decorative arts from Europe, but we can also see that they have collections of Asian and African art.
The museum was built in 1884 and received sculptures and paintings from monasteries and churches that became state property.
It is an important reference to understand Portuguese art through the centuries. The triptych of ” The Temptations of San Antonio ” by El Bosco is in this museum. Highly recommended to go.
Official page: National Museum of Ancient Art.
The Museum of the East
The Museo de Oriente is one of the youngest that we can find in Lisbon. It opened in 2008. In it we will find and admire the culture of the Far East.
Its collection is due to the more than 1,400 pieces on the religious life and culture of the countries that Portugal has had some kind of relationship with since the Age of Discovery.
We will come across masks, costumes, furniture, ceramic figures from cultures that for Westerners are strange and very curious. On the ground floor is where the exhibitions of contemporary oriental artists are held.
If we want to travel to the past, we will go to the first floor where we will witness samurai armor and ritual masks, for example. We will also find art dedicated to Hindu deities.
Official page: Museum of the East.
Museum of Electricity
Another young museum, although not as young as the previous one, is the Electricity Museum. It is located in the neighborhood of Belem. It opened in 1990, closed for rehabilitation, and reopened in 2006.
In that same year, he presented the generation of thermoelectric energy and the building was also declared a center for study and debate on the sector.
We will find different types of rooms where they will teach us how the boilers worked, how the ashtrays dumped the coal ashes, how the steam used was transformed back into water…
