Showing 1-8 of 8 results
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Capela dos Ossos
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.
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Cathedral
Évora's Cathedral looks like a fortress, with two stout granite towers. It was begun around 1186, during the reign of Sancho I, Afonso Henriques' son - there was probably a mosque here before. It was completed about 60 years later. The flags of Vasco da Gama's ships were blessed here in 1497.
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Convento dos Lóios
The former Convento dos Lóios, to the right of the Church of St John the Evangelist, has elegant Gothic cloisters topped by a Renaissance gallery. A national monument, the convent was converted into a top-end pousada (upmarket inn) in 1965. If you want to wander around, wear your wealthy-guest expression - or have dinner at its upmarket restaurant.
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Ermida de São Brás
From the town walls you can see, a few blocks to the southeast, the crenellated, pointy-topped Arabian Gothic profile of the Ermida de São Brás, dating from about 1490. It's possibly an early project of Diogo de Boitac, considered the originator of the Manueline style.
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Igreja da Nossa Senhora da Graça
Down an alley off Rua da República is the curious baroque façade of the Igreja da Nossa Senhora da Graça, topped by four ungainly stone giants - as if they've strayed from a mythological tale and landed up on a religious building. An early example of the Renaissance style in Portugal is found in the cloister of the 17th-century monastery next door.
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Igreja de São Francisco
Évora's best-known church is the Igreja de São Francisco, a tall and huge Manueline-Gothic structure, completed around 1510 and dedicated to St Francis. Exuberant nautical motifs celebrating the Age of Discoveries deck the walls and reflect the confident, booming mood of the time. It's all topped by a cross of Christ's order and dome. Legend has it that the Portuguese navigator Gil Vicente is buried here. What draws the crowds, though, is the Capela dos Ossos (Chapel of Bones) to the right of the main entrance.
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Igreja de São João
The small, fabulous Igreja de São João, which faces the Templo Romano, was founded in 1485 by one Rodrigo Afonso de Melo, count of Olivença and the first governor of Portuguese Tangier, to serve as his family's pantheon. It is still privately owned, by the Duques de Cadaval, and notably well kept.
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Igreja do Carmo
The extraordinary knotted Manueline stone doorway of the Igreja do Carmo lies south of Largo da Porta de Moura.
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Showing 1-8 of 8 results
