A 360 DEGREE TOUR OF PORTUGAL
by Michelle Bienias
360Portugal.com is an ambitious website, noteworthy for its grand scope and ambition: To document all the beauty of Portugal in panoramas, from its Romanesque cathedrals to its towns and villages and most things in between, and remarkable in that it achieves this so superlatively.
Portugal has existed as a country for more than 800 years and harbors a rich reservoir of cultures and archeological ruins, remnants of the many pre-modern peoples – Palaeolithic, Mesolithic, Celtic, Roman and Moorish – that have called this land home over the last several millennia. Santiago Ribas, who runs the website from Porto with his wife, obviously has an interest in these ruins and has organized his site by such categories as Archeology, Romanesque, Megalithic, Castles and Medieval Churches, among others.
 Conimbriga
Conimbriga is the largest Roman archeological site in Portugal, located along the old Roman road between Lisbon and Braga in central Portugal. The site is located on a small plateau near a village in the district of Coimbra. There is evidence of human existence dating as far back as 800 B.C. but it wasn’t until the first century B.C. that major development began, instigated by the Romans when Augustus bestowed an aqueduct, forum, temple, public baths, and private housing and shops.
The pano of the Flavian Forum shows what remains of this two level structure. The Casa de Cantaber, built around the third century, is one of the largest villas discovered in the entire western Roman empire, and is represented on the website with a graphic diagram detailing the rooms of the villa above the pano, for easy reference.
Conimbriga was built in layers and the earliest date back to the first Iron Age in the 9th century B.C. It wasn’t until the Romans arrived in the 2nd Century and conquered the Celtic inhabitants that the city flourished, only to later fall victim to barbarian invasions and then abandonment in the 5th century. The city walls, mosaic floors and foundations of many houses and public buildings remain largely intact and in the baths, you can view the network of stone heating ducts beneath the now-missing floors.
There is a museum at the site that houses some of the excavated artifacts. Recorded awareness of the ruins dates back to the early 1500s, and in 1873 the museum was created but it wasn’t until 1899 that serious excavations began, which still continue today. In fact, archaeologists estimate that only 10 percent of the city has been excavated.
Nearby is the city of Coimbra, known as the Oxford of Portugal due to its university, founded in 1290. Coimbra is on the Costa de Prata, the coastal strip between Lisbon and Porto in central Portugal, as is Tomar, home to the Castle of Tomar and the Convent of Christ.
Tomar
Tomar was the headquarters of the Order of the Knights Templar in Portugal until the 14th century when the order was extinguished and replaced by the Order of Christ. It’s an interesting medieval town with cobbled streets and ancient monuments, most notably the Knights Templar, which represents one of the most important chapters of Portuguese history. The Castle of Tomar was built in 1160 and the Convent of Christ (Convento de Cristo) was built over 600 years, from the 12th to the 17th centuries. It consists of seven cloisters, a temple, a church and a huge bell tower and is surrounded by mediaeval walls.
The Order of the Templars was founded in 1119 and the Castle of Tomar was built in 1160 but in 1314 the Order of Christ replaced the Templars. The Convent of Christ (Convento de Cristo) was built over 600 years from the 12th to the 17th centuries. It consists of seven cloisters, a temple, a church and a huge bell tower and is surrounded by mediaeval walls. UNESCO classifies both the Templar Castle and the Convent of the Knights of Christ in Tomar as world heritage sites.
(Portugal’s architecture is renowned for its Moorish and surrealist flourishes, culminating in the development during the 16th century of the Manueline style characterized by the extravagant use of twists, turns, spirals and nautical themes for decoration.)
Porto
Check out Porto under the Human Heritage category. You’ll find a great satellite photo of the city with many hotspots. Click on one and the screen below divides into two with the pano on the left and a blow-up of the satellite photo with the hotspot marked to show you the direction/view of the pano as it rotates. All the panos have embedded hotspots (clickable icons).
Monsanto
The panorama of Monsanto, under Towns and Villages, shows a picturesque red-roofed village perched high on a granite hillside in the province of Castelo Branco, with a view for miles around.
Website
The website is the work of Porto-based architect Santiago Ribas and his wife, who work from their home and do everything from shooting and stitching and web design to writing the text. Ribas travels the country on his motorcycle shooting without VR head or tripod
The website is navigable by two methods from its home page: a little interactive map, broken down into the main regions of Portugal, enables you to drill down to larger scale maps and find panoramas and sometimes virtual tours of an area; or you can choose one of nine categories -- such as Castles, Archeology or Megalithic ruins -- to peruse the site. Each click brings a surprise; you might find an interactive map of an archeological site with numerous panoramas and informative sidebar commentary, or just a stunning cubic panorama taken atop a hillside village.
Choosing a region from the interactive map at random – Santarem – brings me to a more detailed map with two hotspots, and when I place my cursor over Tomar I am treated to a preview picture. Clicking on Tomar opens another page with a description of the town and its highlights, along with a detailed map of the Templars Castle and Convent of Christ. When I choose the Charola, or center of the Convent of Christ, I am taken to a cubic VR taken inside the church and accompanied with a short description.
Some of the regions are not yet available and some VRs are accompanied by descriptions in Spanish only but most seem to have English and some have both. Ribas says he has a lot of new images of both Portugal and Spain that he will be putting online soon.
Equipment:
Ribas has used a Canon Powershot 600 and QP-1 for this website and other similar jobs. In 2000, he decided to invest in a Nikon D1+ Sigma 8mm + Nikkor 17-35mm and a Manfrotto VR head, which he still uses when he’s not using his motorcycle, when he shoots without a VR head or tripod, using just a double level and a round card marked with 12 and 8 positions.
About Santiago Rubas
Rubas worked as a freelancer from 1985 to 1994 while he developed his architectural visualization skills using a homemade Basic software and drawing by hand over a wire model. In 1994, he started working in 3D CAD for architecture rendering and promotional 3D animation. He started doing VR panoramas in 1997 with a Kodak digital camera, QuickPan QP1 VR head and a Powerbook. In 1998, he had a VR job for a regional state entity, ProCoa, and used a Canon Powershot 600 and QP-1 before investing in a Nikon D1+ Sigma 8mm + Nikkor 17-35mm and a Manfrotto VR head.
He started 360portugal.com inside his main site, www.sribascad.com, as a group of megalithic VRs back in 1999 and received a link from Apple’s QuickTime page. In 2000, he moved his work to 360portugal.com and www.spain360vr.com, which is still under development and is devoted to the Pilgrim’s Road from France to Santiago de Compostela in Spain.
Email: santiago@sribascad.com
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