Small places like this are often visited because someone recommended them to us or because they were described as a must-see by some tourist guides after the hundreds of other places to visit. Isn't that how people find out about towns like that?
It was a bit different for me. I had no idea the place existed and had such a lovely church and monastery until I bought a bag of apples in the supermarket. Yep - apples. The following again.. again...
And they had this sticker on the saying "Maçã de Alcobaça". For a foreigner, it is such a catchy name! Easy to remember, and that made me google the place. Not because of the history, but because I wanted to see where all those apples came from!?
It turned out that the small city is surrounded by dozens and dozens of orchards and on top of that, it is a nice place to visit. One day is absolutely enough, so one sunny morning we packed ourselves into the car and drove to check the apples town.
We found a nice, big and quite empty parking lot close to the center, which was a huge bonus, and straight away I saw the towers of the church (two photos above).
As I mentioned, the place is not big. The old center is the most visited, I guess; the rest are just houses and normal residential areas. The good thing was that even the center wasn't packed with tourists, and the walk in the light spring sun was very pleasant.
This blue building turned out to be a children's Wellness Center :). How cute is that?
Built on the old grounds of the fence of the Monastery of Alcobaça, next to the bank of the river Alcôa, the Chalet was built between the years of 1891 and 1892, standing out for the blue color of its facade.
source
And just a few meters away we get to the monastery walls. And still, there are hardly any people or cars there. Yay!
Keep on walking, passing small shops, more little streets and huge green trees that give a nice shadow and we reach a large square... again.. with hardly any people. It's almost too good to be true :)
The stunning entrance to the church. I will have a separate post on that, because the building is breathtaking.
The church and monastery were the first Gothic buildings in Portugal, and, together with the roughly older Augustinian Monastery of Santa Cruz in Coimbra, it was one of the most important mediaeval monasteries in Portugal
source
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And right in front of it a tree that did not have leaves yet was decorated with the colourful crocheted Easter eggs. I am not a big fan of decorating trees like that, but this was so colorful and looked so nice with the huge, white building behind it that I couldn't resit taking more than one photo :)
Small houses, small coffee shops and small restaurants. This is the old part of the city surrounding the monastery. Pretty cute and relaxing and still... tables are empty.
Where is everyone?
Shot with Nikon D5500 + Nikkor 18-55mm lens
All photos and text are my own.
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It is indeed a beautiful place I see hopefully I can travel there. Enjoy the place @ewkaw 💛✨
Fingers crossed :)
Picking apples lol 😂😂
But how beautiful little town! The Children's Wellness Center with its blue facade is lovely!
Hahaha I bet that's where they all are in the season...
Good evening dear friend @ewkaw
What a peculiar way to discover this place, how great that you decided to visit it
I love the monastery, the church and the delicate details of its construction, I love this type of buildings
What a beautiful city to visit. Your photographs are really beautiful
I appreciate that you let us know this beautiful place, that you have a beautiful night and a happy rest
Sometimes we find cool things when we least expect it :)
Glad you enjoyed it.
Great trip, everything was wonderful. The paschal egg was so beautiful there arranged on a tree branch wrapped in a knitted blanket. I'm sure it has a special meaning why it had to be hung there!
I'd say it was just as a decoration for the holiday season. But some reason nobody took them down.
Wow! Peaceful place and what a beautiful architecture. 🩷
Pretty cool, isn't it?
Very cool! 😊
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Thanks a lot!
I also really like walking in quiet places, it feels more pleasant if the place is quiet, and knitted eggs can also make the place more aesthetic and beautiful. I really want to go there someday
Fingers crossed you manage one day :) It's really nice.
The churches and monasteries captured in your photographs look beautiful. I love the final photograph where you can see this beautiful place while enjoying your coffee. @ewkaw
Thank you!
When I read the first few lines, I thought it was more like a village and not a town, especially when nobody was in your photos of the center of the town! lol... I was curious and researched the municipality on Wikipedia and it does have a population of around 50K inhabitants, while the town has around 15K...
I like towns like this and could easily live in a place like this!
Thanks for sharing!
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I found the same numbers when I was doing some research. It's really not big at all.
Very relaxing place.
Wow, these buildings have facades full of charm!... Thanks for sharing @ewkaw friend!
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Yea they are really nice :)
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A beautiful quiet town to relax from the many tourists. 😉
It is! All tourists stayed in Lisbon :p
Charming town must say. It reminds me on some Austrian town tho :)
Must go to Austria to check it out :D
Delightful towns people must be apple picking season, everyone leaves home bright and early to help the farmers out, that is called a community.
Look forward to hearing about the church, and where all those people are!
I can almost imagine all the apple stands all over the town in the season. Or at least I hope they are there.
Perhaps some used in cider that might be very popular as well !LOLZ
That’s a very nice little town to walk slowly and unwind.
That nude tree looked so happy with all the colourful decorations like jewelry.
It is nice town indeed to spend a day in and just chill. Much lazier and quieter than the big cities.
Suspect 😅
I think they put decorations on that leafless tree to distract you and prevent you from investigating what happened to the people.
Hahahaha... it's a place that looks very beautiful and peaceful. I don't know about at night... with these trees and in the middle of a lightning storm, What will it look like?
🤔
Haha yeaa.. look look colorful ballons :p
A scarry horror house... now it makes me wander if the kids really like it there :p