{"id":59312,"date":"2026-10-14T10:13:38","date_gmt":"2026-10-14T10:13:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/realdreams.pt\/?post_type=to-visit&p=59312"},"modified":"2026-10-14T10:13:38","modified_gmt":"2026-10-14T10:13:38","slug":"panteao","status":"publish","type":"to-visit","link":"https:\/\/realdreams.pt\/pl\/attractions-to-visit\/regions-of-portugal\/lisbon-surroundings\/panteao\/","title":{"rendered":"Pante\u00e3o Nacional"},"content":{"rendered":"

For three and a half centuries, the church of Santa Engr\u00e1cia was Lisbon’s most famous unfinished building \u2014 so famous that its endless works gave the Portuguese language the phrase “obras de Santa Engr\u00e1cia” for anything that never seems to end. Completed at last in 1966, the baroque temple became the National Pantheon, where the nation keeps its great dead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three hundred years of building<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Begun in the 16th century, rebuilt in the 17th by the architect Jo\u00e3o Antunes, closed to worship while still roofless and used in the 20th century as a military boot factory, the church was finally finished in 1966 and inaugurated as the National Pantheon. Under its vast dome \u2014 one of the great baroque interiors of Europe, dressed in coloured marble \u2014 stand the cenotaphs of Cam\u00f5es, Vasco da Gama, Pedro \u00c1lvares Cabral and Prince Henry the Navigator, while the tomb chambers hold presidents of the republic, the writer Sophia de Mello Breyner, the fado singer Am\u00e1lia Rodrigues, the footballer Eus\u00e9bio, and, since 2025, the novelist E\u00e7a de Queiroz. The terrace, forty metres up, opens one of the finest views of the river and the old city; just below stand the monastery of S\u00e3o Vicente de Fora (see the S\u00e3o Vicente de Fora page<\/a>) and the Castle of S\u00e3o Jorge<\/a>, the hilltop crown of Lisbon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What to see<\/h2>\n\n\n\n