Flor da Rosa Monastery

Flor da Rosa was founded in 1356 by Álvaro Gonçalves Pereira, prior of the Order of the Hospital in Portugal and father of Nuno Álvares Pereira, the constable who won at Aljubarrota. It was built as a monastery and a fortress at once - crenellated walls, a keep-like church with high buttresses, a fortified enclosure - reflecting a military order in frontier country. It fell into ruin over centuries and was in poor condition by the 1980s. The restoration, carried out from 1990 by the architect João Carrilho da Graça, is what makes the building notable now: a deliberately contemporary intervention that inserted a pousada into the ruined ranges with modern materials plainly distinguished from the medieval fabric rather than imitating it, and it is studied as a case in heritage practice. The church and cloister can be visited; the pousada holds the rest.

What you actually see

• The fortified church - a high buttressed building designed as a defensible monastery.
• The 1990s intervention - Carrilho da Graça's contemporary insertion into the ruins.
• The cloister - the Gothic court at the centre of the complex.
• The Hospitaller history - a house of the military order in frontier Alentejo.

When to go

March to June and September to November. One to two hours. Public access is limited to the church and cloister; the rest is hotel.

Honest expectations

Most of the complex is a working pousada and not open to non-guests. Opening hours for the church are limited. Alentejo summer heat is severe. Crato itself has few services.

Nearby

Crato is close; Marvão and Castelo de Vide are north-east.