A day in Belém

About thirty minutes by tram to the west of central Lisbon is Belém, a lovely locale we based part of a day around during our trip back in October. Belém is not for the faint of heart if you are unnerved by crowds. In the morning, cruise ships disembark and a never-ending line of tour busses congregate outside of its most popular sites. For our first stop, we avoided the crowds and visited the National Coach Museum. The collection of historical carriages here was amazing, and seeing so many in one place let us see the progression of “technology”, if you can call it that. I never really thought of carriages before, but loved the unique focus of this museum.