Batalha Abbey, Portugal

Often in our travels we visit a place and are truly wowed! Batalha Portugal is one of those places. Bathalha literally meaning Battle was founded in 1385 after the Battle of Aljubarrota. On one side was an army of 30,000 Spaniards vying to take the Portuguese throne. The other side (Portuguese) lead by Dom (King) Joâo with his army of 6500; won the battle. In mid fight Dom Joâo prayed and summoned the power of God, promising to build a superb abbey in return for victory.

Most of Dom Joâo’s monumental abbey formally known as Manueline Mosteiro de Santa Maria da Vitoria (Batalha Abbey) was completed by 1434 with 15th and 16th century expansions and additions.

The stonework on the abbey is of a detail which would usually be associated with lace, not stone.

The ochre coloured limestone building reaches to the sky with its intensely decorative pinnacles and parapets above the extraordinarily high ceiling. The warm light filters through the patterned coloured narrow windows. Layers of arches, ornate with apostles, saints and angels adorn each doorway.

The abbey is now both a national war monument housing the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier; and the crypts of the many Portuguese royals.

The Founders Chapel (housing the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier) is beautiful in its simplicity. It has an extraordinarily large star vaulted ceiling in a square room. It is lit by an octagonal lantern.
The Claustro Real (royal cloister) contains a series of arches in a tangle of ornate stone carving. They are possibly the most intricately beautiful stonework that we have ever seen.

The Unfinished Chapels are an octagonal shaped royal mausoleum. The chapels are highly ornate and without windows. The chapels are not accessed through the church but from the street. The central area has no roof or ceiling leaving it open to the sky. There are a number of theories as to why the chapel was unfinished. The most popular being that the workers were summoned to Lisbon to work on Jeronimos Abbey and never returned.

The unfinished chapel houses the tomb of King Duarte and his wife Leonor of Aragon. The couple were madly in love throughout their life and the carving of the tomb reflects their devotion in a beautiful way.

If you can see past the stained and weathered exterior and look at the building beneath, you will see that the Batalha Abbey is a truly beautiful building.

Comments

How to take a Van-life gap year

How to take a Van-life gap year You don’t just wake up one day, book tickets, fly to Europe and pick up the first campervan you see. There is a lot of planning and organizing to make it happen. For us, it was a concept that we worked towards over two years and got serious about in the last 6-8 months. Van purchase In researching vans, we learned that we could buy one, but couldn't insure or register it without being either European residents (read: address, bank account and utility bills in the country we wished to buy the van in) or set up a company to own, insure and register the van. Now this is not straight-forward as one needs to be able to navigate the system from the other side of the world and in another language (as vans in the UK / Ireland were considerably more expensive than on the continent). There are a number of companies who provide services in this space. We chose EuroCampingCars, because they are based in France and deal in la...

Highland Games

Arriving in Scotland we saw Highland Games advertised in almost every town that we visited. The problem for us was the events were either the week before or in 4 days time; never at a time convenient for us. Our luck changed on the Scottish Borders town of Peebles; all the stars aligned. Highland Games are when local communities get together and celebrate Scottish culture. All Highland games include: a pipe band competition, highland dancing, and traditional heavy events including caber tossing, hammer throwing, and the crowd favourite of haggis hurling. Pipe bands and dancing are open to all ages and cover a range of abilities Shot putt is the same as the Olympic event but competitors are free to use whatever technique works for them. Some use a standing throw, others use a run up or spinning preparation. Hammer throwing, unlike its Olympic equivalent the hammer has a wooden handle and the athlete does not spin in a circle before throwing it. ...

Ben Nevis – Bagging our first Munro

To a Scottish person, a Munro is a mountain over 1000m in height. To hike up one is to "bag" it. Every Scot can tell you how many Munros they've bagged. Now a 1000m doesn't sound that high but the base of almost all Scottish mountains is close to sea level. Yesterday we bagged our first Munro, Ben Nevis the UKs highest peak. Ben Nevis is walked by 12,000 people a year. In rough figures that is 400 a day. It is not walkable all year. Even without the winter snow, the almost constant cloud cover and accompanying rain mean that there are few great days to climb it. We had checked the forecast and saw a window in the morning and knowing that thousands would attempt the climb we resolved to start early. The alarm went off at 5am. We started at about 5m above sea level and hiked the 1345m to the summit. The hike has three distinct sections: 1. The base to the saddle: the path winds its way through silver birch forest and sheep paddocks w...

Mid-life gap year Tanya and Craig

Search This Blog