Portuguese Discoverers

The Padrao dos Descobrimentos (Monument to the Discoveries) in Belem, Lisboa, Portugal.

33 discoverers, explorers, navigators, cartographers, and chroniclers from Portugal's golden age of maritime exploration and trade are recognised on this impressive structure on the banks of estuary of the Tejo (Tagus) river. This permanent version was completed in 1960.

(Somewhere there is a 39-year-old snap of me as a kid climbing on this monument, from when we lived in nearby Estoril).