Museum of the Orient

The museum is a good size in that there’s a good bit to see but you won’t be there all day! The collection is quite impressive. I went on a weekday and it was almost completely empty!

The first floor of the museum is dedicated to the history of the Portuguese colony in Asia, trade relations between Portugal and Asia in the 15th-18th centuries, a large collection of porcelain. But the most interesting is on the second floor. There are showed religious traditions and holidays of Japan, the exhibition is really interesting. Of the minuses - there is no audio guide, so you need to read everything all the time. It took about 2.5 - 3 hours to visit the museum.

Wonderful museum if you are interested in Asian wares or history. There were two main exhibits when I visited that could be easily experienced within 2-3 hours. I learned more at the Japan festivities and rites exhibit than I did traveling to Japan as it was well done and well explained. Take a break while there and visit the 5th floor restaurant for a pastry as it has nice panoramic views.

Great museum however its a bit dark in some of the floors so not that much enjoyable, also a bit confusing to go around by yourself there’s not much signs indicating where to head or in which order to ser the exhibition. Not a bad experience tho.

I don’t understand why this museum isn’t a must see in tourist guides! Great for art lovers

Great museum. Free Fridays 18.00-20.00 although to really enjoy the exhibition you’d need more time. Some of the descriptions are hard to read as it’s quite dark inside.

Great place of you’re into the history of Portugal in Asia. The restaurant and the shop are also worth a visit.

An amazingly beautiful collection. I got an overdose of Virgin Mary and of Jesus - 70% of the exhibited works are religious! - but worth the visit anyway. Don’t miss on the 2nd floor the Japanese 16th century panels depicting their first encounter with the Europeans, Portuguese people.

So much history. You can learn so much about Asian history especially Japanese. Costumes traditions paintings spiritual beliefs. It's very well done and they have a restaurant on the 5th floor. It's not closed even though it looks like it is.

This was a very interesting museum. I did not expect to see this in Portugal. There was a special fan exhibit going on while we were there that was fascinating. Overall, not a bad museum.