Royal Cloister
Pierced tracery.
xiquinhosilva — CC BY 2.0 · xiquinhosilva — CC BY 2.0 · xiquinhosilva — CC BY 2.0 · John P Bar — CC BY-SA 2.0 · xiquinhosilva — CC BY 2.0
Batalha Monastery is a huge honey-coloured stone complex in a small town in central Portugal, its walls and pinnacles covered in Gothic carving as fine as lace. Inside are cloisters with pierced stone tracery, a tall, long church and roofless chapels open to the sky. Its official name is the Monastery of Saint Mary of the Victory; King John I had it built to fulfil a vow after the Battle of Aljubarrota in 1385. Building went on for more than a century, from 1386 to about 1517, under seven kings and fifteen master builders. It became the burial church of the 15th-century Aviz kings. It is one of the finest examples of late Gothic in Portugal, blended with the Manueline style, and was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983. You walk round the facade to see the pinnacles, then enter the church and the Royal Cloister with its garden, and stand in the Unfinished Chapels under the open sky. It is in the centre of Batalha itself and is usually visited together with nearby Alcobaça and Nazaré.
Pierced tracery.
Open to the sky.
On the facade.
Batalha town, Leiria District, central Portugal
About an hour and a half.
Alcobaça and Nazaré.