🇵🇹 Have You Ever Seen a Roofless Church?
Before entering this church, all I knew was: It preserves earthquake ruins. Every visitor gasps upon seeing this cathedral without a ceiling—mouths agape at first sight! 😲 Convento do Carmo, built in 1389, was once Lisbon’s most magnificent Gothic church ⛪—until the 1755 Great Earthquake reduced it to skeletal arches. Restoration began but halted in 1834 when religious orders were abolished, leaving only ghostly columns and the altar area. In 1863, the Portuguese Archaeologists Association transformed the ruins into a museum 🏛️. Now, the open-air nave displays 14th–19th-century architectural fragments, while five chapel rooms exhibit artifacts from: Prehistoric Portugal (5500-year-old sun symbols! ☀️) Roman & Moorish eras 🏺 Medieval stone carvings ⚔️ Renaissance frescoes 🎨 Egyptian & American relics (including two child mummies 👶 with intact hair/skin!) Wandering the cloisters, you’ll see: Gothic rib vaults that once defied gravity ✝️ Flying buttresses frozen mid-collapse 🏗️ A 14th-century mason’s signature hidden on a pillar (staff will point it out! 🔍) Architects treasure this place—where destruction became art. The unroofed sanctuary, now flooded with sunlight, feels more sacred in its honesty than any intact church. 🌤️ #MuseumWonders #LisbonHistory #GothicRuins #OffbeatTravel #PortugalDiaries #ArchitectureLovers
