photobyjohnbo

Cellpic Sunday – Alfama’s Crown

The National Pantheon (Panteão Nacional)

February 2025.
Lisbon, Portugal.

As we docked in Portugal’s capital city on the Norwegian Bliss, the rising sun bathed the hills in a gentle glow. Alfama, the city’s oldest district, presented a mosaic of terracotta rooftops and pastel façades. Rising above the ancient landscape is the unmistakable dome of the National Pantheon, a Baroque masterpiece that commanded a photo. The building known locally as Alfama’s Crown took three centuries to finish. Barcelona’s La Sagrada Família? Still under construction after 140 years. Is it something in the Mediterranean air? Are deadlines there more like gentle suggestions? OK, that’s enough being snarky about this beautiful building.

Writing this post several months after visiting Lisbon, I used AI to help me provide this history of Alfama’s Crown. The National Pantheon is also known as the Church of Santa Engrácia (Igreja de Santa Engrácia). Construction began in 1681, replacing earlier churches dedicated to Saint Engratia of Braga.

Despite its ambitious design, the building became infamous for its prolonged construction. After Antunes died in 1712 and King John V shifted focus to the Convent of Mafra, the project languished for centuries. This delay gave rise to the Portuguese expression “obras de Santa Engrácia”, meaning a never-ending construction.

In 1916, the unfinished church was repurposed as the National Pantheon, and it was finally completed in 1966 under the Estado Novo regime. Today, it serves as the final resting place for many of Portugal’s most revered figures, including presidents, writers, and cultural icons like Eusébio, the legendary footballer.

Lisbon Skyline
The Lisbon skyline

About the photos: I captured the view of sunrise over Lisbon in two images using separate lenses in my Samsung S23U. The first image of the Pantheon was taken with the rear telephoto camera. The photo immediately above was taken with the wide-angle lens. Both images were cropped to reduce the clutter of the dock and port area. I used Adobe Lightroom Classic for basic editing and AI distraction removal in the image of the Alfama area in the opening photo. I used Luminar Neo to bring out the foreground details in both images using Neo’s Enhanced AI tool. I masked to exclude the sky so that no adjustment would be made to the color in either image of the beautiful pastel sunrise. The images and associated metadata are in the 2K HD gallery here.

I encourage fellow bloggers to create their own Cellpic Sunday posts. I never have a specific topic for this feature, and the only rules are that the photo must be captured with a cell phone, iPad, or another mobile device… If you have an image from a drone or even a dashcam, that’s also acceptable. The second rule is to link your challenge response to this post or leave a comment here with a link to your post in the comment. Oh, you don’t have to post it on a Sunday.

John Steiner

47 comments

    • Thanks! Lisbon really sticks with me, as well. Glad the colors came through. I know the editing’s a bit much for some—I just enjoy chasing the mood I felt in the moment. Appreciate you sharing your thoughts.

      Reply

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.