Capela dos Ossos

Lonely Planet review

The Capela dos Ossos is a mesmerising memento mori (reminder of death). A small room behind the altar has walls and columns lined with the bones and skulls of some 5000 people. This was the solution found by 17th-century Franciscan monks for the overflowing graveyards of several dozen churches and monasteries. There's a black humour to the way the bones and skulls have been carefully arranged in patterns, and the whole effect is strangely beautiful, if not one you would want to recreate at home.

Adding a final ghoulish flourish are two hanging desiccated corpses, including one of a child. An inscription over the entrance translates as: 'We bones await yours'. A great (Addams) family day out. The entrance is to the right of the Igreja de São Francisco.