Alcobaça Monastery

Alcobaça Monastery is a Catholic monastic complex in the town of Alcobaça in the Oeste region, 120 kilometres north of Lisbon and 110 south of Coimbra. It was established in 1153 by Afonso Henriques, the first Portuguese king, and went on to hold a close association with the Portuguese monarchy. The church is vast, plain and early Gothic, deliberately unornamented in the Cistercian manner, which makes the two carved royal tombs inside it, facing each other across the transept, all the more startling.