Explore Lisbon

Lisbon Cathedral, the Sé, is the city's oldest church, begun in 1147 after Afonso Henriques took Lisbon from the Moors. Its Romanesque west front has two crenellated towers and a rose window; earthquakes, including that of 1755, led to Gothic and Baroque rebuilding. The visit includes the high choir, the treasury and the ambulatory.

Igreja de São Roque was the first Jesuit church in Portugal: its first stone was laid in 1555 and it was redesigned in 1565 as a single hall built for preaching. It survived the 1755 earthquake largely intact and passed to the Santa Casa da Misericórdia. Its Chapel of St John the Baptist was made in Rome in the 1740s and shipped to Lisbon.

The Church of Santa Cruz do Castelo stands in the Castelo quarter against the inner wall of São Jorge Castle's citadel, on the site of a mosque converted after the Christian conquest of Lisbon in 1147. The present single-nave church is the rebuilding by João Paulo after the 1755 earthquake, and visitors can climb its bell tower.

The Graça Convent is an Augustinian church and convent on the Graça hill, founded in 1271 and rebuilt in a late Baroque style after the 1755 earthquake; Afonso de Albuquerque was buried in its chancel in 1566. A ticketed route leads through the upper choir and cloisters to a rooftop terrace beside the Graça viewpoint.

The Monastery of São Vicente de Fora was founded around 1147 by Afonso Henriques outside the city walls; the present Mannerist church was built from 1582 under Philip II of Spain. The monastery holds 18th-century azulejo panels and the pantheon of the Braganza kings, and its roof terrace looks out over Alfama and the Tagus.

The Estrela Basilica was begun in 1779 for Queen Maria I, who had vowed to build a church if she bore an heir, and was the first church dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Its white facade has twin bell towers and a large dome visible across western Lisbon. Inside, grey, pink and yellow marble lines the floor and walls, and the queen's tomb lies in the transept.

The Jerónimos Monastery in Belém was begun in 1502 under King Manuel I for the Order of Saint Jerome and built mainly by Diogo de Boitaca and João de Castilho in the Manueline style. Its church holds the tombs of Vasco da Gama, the poet Luís de Camões and Kings Manuel I and John III. With Belém Tower it has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1983.