The industrial city and district capital of Setúbal, situated on the wide estuary of the Rio Sado, is Portugal's fourth largest city and third largest port, with important fish canneries, a car assembly plant, shipyards and saltpans. The Roman town which occupied this site was founded in the fifth C. to
replace the Celtic settlement of Cetobriga on the Tróia peninsula to the southeast, which was destroyed by a tidal wave.
A royal residence for a time in the 15th C., Setúbal is also the birthplace of the poet and satirical writer Manuel Maria de Barbosa du Bocage (1765-1805; small museum in the house where he was born in the Rua do Sao Domingo).
Townscape
Setúbal is quite attractive for an industrial city. On the Rio Sado waterfront are the docks, the marina and the fishing harbor, where brisk auctions take place every morning when the fishermen have unloaded the day's catch. North of the waterfront runs one of the city's main throughfares, the Avenida de Luisa Todi, named after the celebrated operasinger (1754-1833), who was born in Setúbal. The crowded and picturesque old town, centerd around the Praça do Bocage with its statue of the poet, is on the other side of this avenue, and contains the few sights of the city spared by the 1755 earthquake.
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