10 Museums in Portugal That You Shouldn't Miss

A huge and unused storage space in the region’s biggest winery - an authentic industrial place where the smells of wine hover around. Nearly everything was left untouched, even the rough dark old walls, while the integration of a perfect infrastructure for a modern art gallery with a gigantic light system went ahead. The result: 3.000 m² breathtaking contrast of space. Looking forward meeting you!

The Observatorio do Lago Alqueva – OLA (Lake Alqueva Observatory) is an astronomical observatory next to the medieval village of Monsaraz. OLA offers almost daily tours of the magnificent night sky of Monsaraz, where one can learn the orientation by the North Star, identify the constellations and know their legends, relate stellar colours with their ages, observe star clusters, nebulas and distant galaxies with the help of telescopes. The explanations are presented with clear examples and language by OLA’s guides. When the weather is cloudy, we resort to a simulation using astronomy software. The observatory also promotes courses on astronomy and astrophotography and has a vast program of outreach talks and activities for the general public, schools and senior groups.

With works ranging from Antiquity to the early 20th century, the Founder’s Collection comprises more than six thousand pieces gathered throughout Calouste Sarkis Gulbenkian’s life, including Egyptian Art, Greco-Roman Art, Islamic Arts, Painting, Sculpture and European Decorative Arts. Works by great masters such as Rubens, Rembrandt, Turner, Degas and René Lalique’s largest set of jewels are just a few examples of what can be found in one of the best private collections in the world. Besides the Founder’s Collection, the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum is also comprised by the Modern Collection, which features the largest and most complete collection of modern and contemporary Portuguese Art. The Calouste Gulbenkian Museum is surrounded by one of the most emblematic modern gardens in Portugal, open all year. The Museum offers a wide range of facilities to improve the visitor’s experience: three cafeterias overlooking the Garden, a museum shop, free cloackroom service and free Wi-Fi.

Located in an 18th-century riding academy attached to the royal palace, the museum features coaches and carriages dating back to the seventeenth century.

A must-see for people interested in the history and design of ceramic tiles, this specialty museum houses a splendid collection of decorative tiles dating from the 15th century to the present.

The collections of the Museum of Evora consist of about 20 thousand pieces, which highlight the collections of Painting, Sculpture and Archaeology. Besides the aesthetic value and historical importance of many works, the only condition is the panorama of museums in Portugal, the fact that its core come from an eighteenth-century collection of great diversity and inclusiveness, organized by Frei Manuel of the Upper Room, Archbishop of Evora. It is in the organization of the collections system, in order to articulate all fields of knowledge, which expresses the thinking Library-Museum and its educational function in the second half of the eighteenth century in Portugal. This initial condition and this universalistic core also part of the collections of Numismatic unfortunately looted during the French invasions, the collections of drawings and prints, and the core of Naturalia, where they meet several specimens of Natural Sciences. The extinction of the religious orders contributed significantly to extend the estate, benefiting from the collections of Painting and Sculpture, and Decorative Arts with the constitution of several nuclei important as jewelery, ceramics, furniture and textiles. Conducting numerous archaeological excavations during the twentieth century, especially on the Prehistory and Roman times, has enriched the Museum's collection, deepening the relationship with the history of the city and the region.