Museu do Dinheiro, Lisbon

At Museu do Dinheiro, you are looking at a museum installed inside the former São Julião church, a building later used by Banco de Portugal before becoming this institution. Its past is unusually practical: after the church was deconsecrated in 1933, the bank used the interior for strongrooms, archives and even vehicle storage. The museum opened on 19 April 2016, following a major rehabilitation led by architect Gonçalo Byrne with another architect.

Inside, collections of coins and banknotes explain how money developed in Portugal and elsewhere, with interactive displays making the subject tangible. Look at the crypt’s masonry: part of Lisbon’s thirteenth-century city wall runs through it, built during the reign of King Dinis. That underground fragment has its own interpretation centre, so the visit joins monetary history with a surviving piece of medieval fortification.