Navio Hospital Gil Eanes

The Gil Eanes, a hospital ship built in 1955, has been permanently moored in the port of Viana do Castelo since 1998 and ranks among the most distinctive museum vessels in Europe. For nearly two decades she served Portugal's cod-fishing fleet on the Grand Banks off Newfoundland, providing medical care in one of the North Atlantic's most punishing environments. Bacalhau — dried salt cod — runs so deep in Portuguese culture that generations of fishermen spent months at sea to supply it; the Gil Eanes was their only lifeline to medical help. Aboard, original operating theatres, wards, and crew quarters survive largely intact, offering an unusually tangible record of shipboard medicine and postwar deep-sea fishing life. Opening hours run 09:30–18:00 from October to March and 09:30–19:00 from April to September, with closures on Christmas and New Year's Day.