Aerial View, Lisbon, Portugal, 2002
Photograph by Tino Soriano
The church of Santo Estêvão, at right, watches over clusters of red-roofed homes along the Lisbon shore. Built by seafarers where the Tagus River empties into the Atlantic, Lisbon was once Europe's wealthiest capital and a center of world exploration. In 1775, a horrific earthquake in the Portuguese capital led to centuries of decline.