Sunday walk

Wanting to escape from the all too usual Sunday dullness, yesterday me and my mother went for a walk. We decided to get out of our home city and go somewhere else nearby. So off we rode to a town called Batalha (Portuguese word for "battle"), located about twenty kilometres from where we live, for a brief visit to one of the most ellaborate gothic monasteries in Portugal.

It's full and "official" name is Santa Maria da Vitória na Batalha, which literally translates as Holy Mary of Victory in the Battle, and owns it to the fact that it was comissioned by king John I after his decisive victory over a Castillian army in 1385. The battle assured him the throne and founded a new Portuguese dinasty that would last two hundred years, which is about the same amount of time it took to build the monastery. Well, it was more of an ongoing project that was never really finished, as new kings from the dinasty kept adding their own contributions to the building. It served as a royal resting place for John I, his family and his heirs, including the probably best known prince Henry the Navigator, the architect of the first decades of the Portuguese Discoveries. I took the oportunity to leave some roses by three of the tombs.

The whole building went through major restauring and reconstruction works in the 19th century after it was damaged in the 1755 earthquake, sacked in the Napoleonic invasions of 1810 and abandoned during the expulsion of religious orders in 1834, in the aftermath of the Portuguese civil war. In the 20th century, an equestrian statue of Nuno Álvares Pereira, the Portuguese general responsible for the military victories against the Castilians in the 1383-85 crisis, was raised in the exterior.

Here are some of the photos I took. Hope you enjoy them, Aylin ;) A more detailled history of the monastery (and more pictures) can be found by clicking here.