Igreja do Carmo do Porto

Two churches stand side by side on this square. The Igreja dos Carmelitas is seventeenth-century and belonged to a Carmelite convent of nuns; the Igreja do Carmo beside it is 1760s rococo and belonged to the Carmelite friars. Canon law of the period would not permit two churches to share a wall, so they are separated by the Casa Escondida, a house about one metre wide - reportedly among the narrowest in Portugal - which was occupied until the 1980s, by the chaplain and later by others, and which can now be visited on a ticket. The eastern flank of the Igreja do Carmo, facing the street, is covered in a single azulejo composition of 1912 by Silvestro Silvestri showing the founding of the Carmelite order, around thirty metres long, and it is what stops people on the pavement. The interiors are gilded baroque.

What you actually see

• The two churches - Carmelitas and Carmo side by side from different centuries.
• The one-metre house - the Casa Escondida wedged between them, now visitable.
• The azulejo wall - a thirty-metre 1912 composition on the eastern flank.
• The canon law reason - the rule against two churches sharing a wall.

When to go

Year-round. Thirty to sixty minutes. The hidden house is visited on a ticket at set times and is very small, so it caps numbers.

Honest expectations

The churches themselves are free but the hidden house and museum are ticketed. The house is genuinely one metre wide and unsuitable for anyone claustrophobic. Services close the churches. The square outside is busy with Lello queues.

Nearby

Livraria Lello and Clérigos are a minute away; the university is on the same square.