Batalha Favorites

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Favorite thing: The architecture of religious structures is meant to awe and overwhelm and here Batalha does a good job of that also. A friend of mine, who also happens to be a christian priest, once told me the reason when I asked him "why does it need to be so BIG?". His answer was that making the churches so high would draw your view upwards toward heaven....well sounds like a logical answer.

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Favorite thing: One of the things that attract me as a tourist and photographer to many religious structures is the detail and beauty of the windows, stained glass or not. Batalha was no different, not only the major stained glass window, which is from the 1500's, but also the frames and added details surrounding the windows.

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Favorite thing: Batalha was a surprise for us, we really, for some reason, loved this monastary. And this after we had seen dozens here in Portugal.
I have attached a few internet sites that we used for information/history and they also have some professional photos much better than mine.

Fondest memory: http://www.sacred-destinations.com/portugal/batalha-monastery
http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/264
http://www.sights-and-culture.com/Portugal/Batalha.html

Favorite thing: The monastery was built to celebrate a great victory against the Spanish, that saved our independence.

The hero was Nuno Alvares Pereira, that later, distributed by the poor all his great fortune and became a monk. He was, recently proclaimed saint by the Pope, under the name of Nuno de Santa Maria.

In Batalha he is still remembered by his military role.

Favorite thing: Three small details make these two pictures in Batalha a little bit different. Will you find them ?

Fondest memory: Solution:

1 - At left the monastery was absolutely secondary. At right it catches all the attention

2 - Left, the bride waits for her husband to take the picture. Right, she is somewhere home, waiting for her husband to post this tip.

3 - Left, the stone evidences its 600 years in place. Right, 27 years of pollution have been added.

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Favorite thing: Situated in the northwestern corner of Claustro Real, the LAVABO, the work of Mateus Fernando, is a thing of beauty and harmony and also another one of my favourite parts of the Monastery. It consists of a fountain and two smaller basins above. This finely sculpted Lavabo was used for ritual washing.

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Favorite thing: Strangely enough, I think my most favourite part of my visit to Batalha Monestery, is the fascinating UNFINISHED CHAPELS or CAPELAS IMPERFEITAS.
The Chapel was originally meant to house the tombs of the family of King Duarte and his heirs. But he and his Queen Leonor of Aragon are the only ones buried here.
The Chapel is only accessible from the outside. A magnificent Gothic doorway almost 15 metres (50 feet) high with Manueline decoration, accesses the roofless Unfinished Chapel.
Open to the sky, Seven Chapels branch from an octagonal rotunda, divided from each other by carved incomplete pillars, which are decorated in Manueline style and carved in stone. The massive buttresses were designed to support an unfinished dome.
I guess, I was just amazed at the wonderful detail here, especially the Manueline style of decoration and the intriguing story behind why it wasn't finished. It seems construction was abandoned when workers were taken to Lisbon to build Jeronimos Monastery.

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Favorite thing: The ROYAL CLOISTERS were first built in Gothic style in the late 1380's, but Manueline embellishments were added a century later. Typical Manueline symbols such as flowers of newly discovered lands and seafaring motifs are carved in every arch.

Plaque in the Cloister area reads:
King Joao I Cloister or Claustro de D, Joao I
"The construction was begun in 1386, following the original plan of Afonso Dominiques. It was concluded in 1515, in the Manueline style by Mateus Fernandes