National Coach Museum

The Museu Nacional dos Coches was founded in 1905 by Queen Amélia in the royal riding school at Belém, and its collection of ceremonial carriages is generally reckoned the best in the world - around seventy vehicles from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century, from a plain leather-slung coach of Philip II with no springs to the Baroque extremes of the eighteenth century. The set that draws people is the three coaches built in Rome in 1716 for the embassy of João V to Clement XI, enormous gilded ships of carved wood with allegorical figures larger than life sprawled over them, made to overwhelm onlookers in a procession and doing it still. Since 2015 the collection has been in a new concrete building across the road by Paulo Mendes da Rocha; the old riding school still holds part of it and is worth the second ticket for the room itself.

History

Queen Amélia founded the museum on 23 May 1905 in the former Royal Riding School of the Belém Palace, built in 1787, as the first coach museum in the world. It took its present name in 1911, a new hall by Raul Lino opened in 1944, and on 23 May 2015 most of the collection moved to the new building by Paulo Mendes da Rocha; in 2016 it had 382,593 visitors (Wikipedia, National Coach Museum).

Highlights

• The 1716 Rome coaches - three gilded carriages made to overwhelm a papal procession.
• The range - around seventy vehicles from the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries.
• The new building - Mendes da Rocha's 2015 concrete gallery.
• The old riding school - the original 1905 setting, a painted royal hall.

When to go

Year-round. One to two hours. Closed Mondays. The old riding school across the road needs its own ticket and keeps shorter hours.

What to expect

Two buildings and two tickets, which catches people out. The new gallery is a large open hall that some find flat compared with the old school. Belém is crowded through the day. Labelling is limited in English.

Nearby

The Jerónimos monastery is a short walk; the Belém tower is on the waterfront.

Key facts