Alcobaca Monastery

Alcobaca was founded in 1153 for the Cistercians and built to their rule: a church of enormous height and almost no ornament, three naves of equal span running back into grey light, with nothing to look at but proportion. The exception stands in the transept, where the tombs of King Pedro and Ines de Castro face each other across the floor, their sides carved in dense Gothic panels. Behind the church the monastic machine survives - the Cloister of Silence, the dormitory, the chapter house, and a kitchen on a scale that still startles, with a chimney the width of a room and a channel of the river diverted straight through the work surface. UNESCO listed it in 1989.

What you actually see

• The nave - three aisles of equal height, stripped of decoration by design.
• The tombs of Pedro and Ines - facing effigies with carved Gothic panels on every side.
• The monks' kitchen - a diverted river channel and a chimney the size of a small room.
• The Cloister of Silence - the 14th-century cloister with an upper storey added later.

When to go

Spring and autumn for comfortable temperatures inside a building that stays cold year round - bring a layer even in July. Mornings are quieter; coach parties doing the Batalha and Fatima circuit arrive late morning. The combined ticket with Batalha and Tomar is worth it if you are doing more than one.

Honest expectations

The deliberate austerity leaves some visitors cold - there is no colour, no gilding and very little to explain what you are looking at beyond a few panels. The town outside is workaday and the square in front is used as a car park. Sections of the cloister and dormitory close for works without much notice.

Nearby

Batalha's abbey is half an hour east, Nazare's beach twenty minutes west and Obidos further south.