The Sé

Lisbon’s cathedral – the Sé – stands stolidly on a slope overlooking the Baixa grid. Founded in 1150 to commemorate the city’s Reconquest from the Moors, it has a suitably fortress-like appearance, and in fact occupies the site of the principal mosque of Moorish Lishbuna. Like so many of the country’s cathedrals, it is Romanesque – and extraordinarily restrained in both size and decoration. The great rose window and twin towers form an effective facade, but inside there’s nothing very exciting: the building was once splendidly embellished on the orders of Dom João V, but his Rococo whims were swept away by the earthquake and subsequent restorers. All that remains is a group of Gothic tombs behind the high altar and the decaying thirteenth-century cloister. This is currently being heavily excavated, revealing the remains of a sixth-century Roman house and Moorish public buildings.