Mosteiro de Tibães

Tibães was the mother house of the Benedictine order in Portugal and Brazil, founded in the eleventh century and rebuilt on a huge scale from the seventeenth, with four cloisters, a church covered in gilded woodcarving by André Soares, and a walled estate of about forty hectares laid out as terraced gardens, orchards, woodland, a system of tanks and channels, chapels of the Via Sacra and a lake. The orders were dissolved in 1834, the property was sold at auction in 1864, and the complex was stripped and left to decay for a century and a half - roofs fell in, carvings were removed, the gardens went to scrub. The state bought it in 1986 and restoration has run since, deliberately as a slow, visible process: some ranges are finished, others are stabilised ruins with the decay left legible, which makes it a more honest building to walk through than a fully restored one.

History

The monastery was founded around 1060, and Count Henry of Burgundy granted its feudal rights in 1110. It became the mother house of the Benedictines in Portugal and Brazil in 1567, the monks rebuilt it from the first half of the 17th century, and in 1757-1760 André Soares designed the main altarpiece and woodwork; after its sale in 1864 it decayed, a fire in 1894 ruined much of it, including the refectory cloister, and the state bought it in 1986 (Wikipedia, Monastery of São Martinho de Tibães).

The main sights

• The four cloisters - the scale of a seventeenth-century mother house.
• The gilded church - André Soares's woodcarving in the eighteenth-century interior.
• The estate - forty hectares of terraces, tanks, woodland and Via Sacra chapels.
• The visible restoration - finished ranges beside stabilised ruins, deliberately.

When to go

April to October for the grounds. Two to three hours. Closed Mondays. The estate walk needs dry weather.

Practical notes

Restoration is incomplete and sections are closed or roofless - that is the state of the building, not a temporary problem. The grounds are large and muddy after rain. Braga's bus service out here is limited. Interpretation is mainly in Portuguese.

Nearby

Braga and its cathedral are east; Bom Jesus do Monte is beyond the city.

Key facts