We  recently took a holiday for two weeks touring that most multifaceted of countries .....Portugal .  We covered around 1800 miles and managed to see  a vast amount of the country, its fascinating history, ancient and modern towns and castles.

 Having  motored over  high mountains on narrow twisty tracks, encountered wild goats on the road, endured (by English  standards!)  over 41 degrees C.  in the drought stricken areas, surfed  and swam on wild west coast  beaches, crossed very dry and wild  plains it was imperative also to visit the  excellent ' Museum de Marinhe'  in Lisbon. Having visited many a Maritime  museum in Europe this one ranks among the very best in my opinion, no visit to  Lisbon or indeed Portugal would  be truly complete without spending  some serious time there!

The Museum is housed in an old Cloister building in the waterside Belem district,  (first photo) this gives vast halls of display space to many hundreds of ship models , ranging from diminutive local rowboats to huge  shipbuilders models. There is also a large covered pavilion housing  the full-size Royal  barges as well as  many  other interesting  full-size vessels, even three seaplanes!

I apologize for the distinct lack of  photographs of powered  merchant ships. I was running out of  memory card, battery power as well as  energy ...

The majority of photos are taken from a modelers viewpoint, in the main  to demonstrate the high standard of model making  as well as the fascinating sheer variety of vessels , rigs and  application.

There were some nice diorama  vignettes of naval guns, fishing net laying and types of mines as well as  for me a beautiful piece of detail observation..... on the sternwheeler  Mozambique river gunboat there were some handsome bentwood chairs and  deck chairs on the upper deck!

Enjoy!

ModelWarships.com -- -- 2005