The Abbey of St. Batholomew, more simply known as the Abbey of Arouca, was a Cistercian monastery of women dating from the 10th century. It is located in Arouca, now in the Porto metropolitan area of Portugal.
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Associação Geoparque Arouca (AGA)
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Ecovia do Arda
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Parlamento
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A Assembleia
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Café Arouquense
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Casa Testinha
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Beautiful monastery, a must see if you visit Arouca. It has lots of religious artifacts, if you have time my advice to you is to take the full tour of the museum.
The monastic building constituted by the church, choir, cloisters, dormitories and fence, was classified as a National Monument in 1910.
The current construction was built from the late seventeenth century and the next century. It overlapped all existing buildings and erased all previous architectural structures that were built from the tenth century.
In the thirteenth century, the Holy Queen Mafalda, turned the monastery to the Cistercian rule, and changing the name to the Monastery of Santa Maria de Arouca. The quality of its architecture, and the complementary arts, is justified by the high socio-cultural strata of the nuns who...
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Le 20/07/2025, nous avions décidé d'aller faire un tour à moto et un resto à Aroucas et sommes tombé par hazard sur une journée festive, une animation, évocation des temps anciens et visite du monastère. Différents tableaux animés par des figurants volontaires représentaient la vie autour des années 1850. Ce fut une très belle journée dans la gaité et gentillesse traditionnelle portugaise. La visite du monastère avec des figurants dans différentes scènes de la vie monastique était parfaitement réussie. Dans la partie de l'église réservée aux soeurs du cloitre avait lieu la cérémonie de consécration (voeux solennels) d'une nouvelle soeur. L'architerture de l'ensemble de cet édifice religieux est très beau et parfaitement conservé, visite à ne pas rater si vous êtes dans...
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The monastery and art museum are wrapped into one tour. The monastery is beautiful, however the only available tour was in Portuguese, making it difficult to understand most of the tour. Still worth a visit if you're...
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