Santarém: the old centre above the Tagus: a self-guided walk

By Alleytale

Churches, tiles and a castle park in old Santarém

The old centre is full of churches from different centuries, Gothic, Manueline, Renaissance and Jesuit, set close together, and each one has something particular to see or know.

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The stops

1. 1Jardim das Portas do Sol

   This park sits on the site of Santarém's old castle, high on a slope over the Tagus and the countryside around it, and parts of the castle walls and towers are still standing. Afonso Henriques took the town on 15 March 1147, and the chronicles tell how men climbed the walls at night and opened the gates. Take in the river view before you walk into the old streets.

   

2. 2Igreja da Graça

   Augustinian friars settled in Santarém in 1376, and work on their church began in 1380, though money troubles kept it from being finished until the second quarter of the 15th century. The facade is Flamboyant Gothic, with a large rose window carved from a single stone. Pedro Álvares Cabral, who is credited with the discovery of Brazil, is buried inside under a flat slab in the right apse.

   

3. 3Torre das Cabaças

   Look at the top of this tower: eight clay gourds sit on an iron frame around a big bronze bell dated 1604, and the gourds act as a sounding box for the bell. The tower was built over a defensive structure around the Porta do Alporão, a gate in the old walls, and the name Torre das Cabaças, the Gourd Tower, stuck from the late 18th century. It is also called the Clock Tower, and today it holds the Núcleo Museológico do Tempo, a museum about time.

   

4. 4Igreja de Santa Maria de Marvila

   Marvila is believed to have been rebuilt on the foundations of a mosque from Islamic Santarém. Its main doorway is Manueline, from the early 16th century, and inside, 17th-century azulejos line the chancel chapels and the side naves, which has earned the church the nickname the cathedral of tiles.

   

5. 5Santuário do Santíssimo Milagre

   Legend says a woman took a consecrated host from communion to use in witchcraft, and the host bled all along her way. When she hid it at home it lit up the house, and she repented. The host is kept in this church in a silver monstrance, and the church you see was rebuilt in the Renaissance style after the 1531 earthquake.

   

6. 6Igreja de São Nicolau

   A fire destroyed the medieval church of São Nicolau in 1600, and rebuilding began in 1613, reusing part of the earlier structure. The bell tower has a dome and pinnacles, and the original plan called for a second tower that was never built. Inside, 17th-century blue and yellow azulejos line the walls, and a Manueline tomb belongs to João Afonso, a counsellor of King John I who founded a hospital in 1426.

   

7. 7Santarém Cathedral

   This Jesuit church from the 17th century stands on the site of the old royal palace, the Alcazaba Nova, which had been abandoned since the time of King John II. After the Jesuits were expelled from Portugal, Queen Maria I gave the building to serve as a seminary, and it stayed in that use until the twentieth century. It became a cathedral in 1975, when the Diocese of Santarém was created.

   

8. 8Convento de São Francisco

   The Franciscans settled in Santarém in 1240, and King Sancho II founded this convent two years later; it is described as one of the best examples of Mendicant Gothic in Portugal. King Fernando was buried here in 1383. After the male religious orders were abolished in 1834 a cavalry regiment used the church and cloister until the middle of the 20th century, and the town reopened the restored monument to the public in 2009.

   

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