Money Museum (Museu do Dinheiro)

Lisbon is a city full of museums. 

This week we visited the Money Museum. 

The Money Museum invites you to 'come and see money'.

The museum is housed in a former late-Baroque church from the 1800s.

This 7 ton vault once protected the country's gold reserves.

Do you see the gold bar in the vault? It weighs 12 kg (26 lbs) and is worth around a million euros. 

The rooms were full of coins and banknotes - and showcased their history and development, both in Portugal and around the world.

This Japanese "Oban" is one of the museum's priceless pieces. It was used as currency.

Gold bars used by the Portuguese as money in Brazil.

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Can you tell which ones are the counterfeits? 

King Dinis' Wall

There was an added bonus to this visit - in the church's basement we got to see a medieval construction. After the 1755 Earthquake that devastated much of Lisbon the 13th century Medieval wall of King Dinis lay buried until this remnant on display today was uncovered. The wall separated the river and the city, and defended it from attacks from the sea. Archaeological remains found on the site are now on display -  pieces of pottery from the Roman and Islamic periods, masonry fragments, coins, tiles and human skeletons - telling the story of waterfront Lisbon from the last thousand years.

Oh, and did I mention that this was all free. Yep. These two hours didn't cost a thing!

Except we did stop for a pastel da nata on the way home.😋