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    Igreja de São Domingos

    4.4 (13 reviews)
    Open 7:30 am - 7:00 pm

    Igreja de São Domingos Photos

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    William W.

    Just outside of bustling Plaza Rossio is this intriguing Lisbon church with an ordinary, unremarkable exterior but a dark and mysterious interior. While the cathedral isn't among the most striking in Europe, you'll notice the stunningly cavernous cathedral with towering pillars. It looks ancient, and in fact the foundation of Igreja de São Domingos dates to 1241. However, most of what you see was built by 1807 after the cathedral was leveled by the 7.7-magnitude earthquake of 1755. The ceiling is unremarkable, but the interior is certainly unique among the Portuguese churches.

    Entrance
    Kanchan B.

    This church forms part of the route that the Sandemans free walking tour takes, but the guide only told us about the history of the church from the outside, and so on Day 2 of our visit, we decided to come by in the morning to check this church out. What is intriguing and interesting about this church, (as told by our tour guide) is the following 3 things: 1) Survivor of 2 earthquakes and a fire: This Church has had three natural disasters occur to the building, and the scars of all three are clearly visible in the architecture and facades, as very minimal reconstruction and refurbishment occurred after the two earthquakes and a subsequent fire in the 1950s. The plastered walls inside start off being a funny orangey-pink color and then it turns into a baroque style. If you look up at the ceiling, the fire damage is obvious with the scorch marks showing up against the stone pillars as well. 2) Head church for the Portuguese Inquisition: The Spanish inquisition also made its way to Portugal, and this church was the local HQ. A missionary was actually executed inside this the church after being accused of treason by his colleagues! 3) Lisbon Easter Massacre: Our guide said that one of the most shameful things that happened here was the slaughter of the Catholic converts, that turned into a massacre of the Jewish populace of Lisbon City back in the 1500s. What happened was that the city was going thru famine & plague, and new Catholic converts as well as the establishment were at this church praying for deliverance. One of the Catholic paterfamilias talked about an appearance of Christ which the congregation took to be a miracle. However one of the newer Converts corrected him and said it was just how light and the suns reflection occurs and was works. He was accused of hearsay and beaten to death and the anger turned to all other new Catholics and Jews in the city were accused of heresy and killed. Some of that gruesome history came back to me when I visited the inside of the church as to the far right side, there is an interesting triptych; at the bottom, level with the floor is a gruesome depiction of Jesus's decaying body. Then at eye level, is a depiction of his death in his mother's arms and finally, above both of those images, you see his body nailed it the cross. It's kinda graphic and disturbing to be honest. But as counterpart, on the other side is a most beautiful Art Deco sculpture of Jesus as well as a white marble sculpture of Mary. And then, if that's not enough, when you exit the church and see a long line of people queuing in front of a store, that's the location of the famous cherry brandy shop "A Ginjinha!" So yeah - plenty to think about at this Church, and maybe a drink is indeed needed afterwards! Yelp 194/ 2019

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    São Vicente de Fora - Exterior of the monastery

    São Vicente de Fora

    3.5(4 reviews)
    1.0 kmSão Vicente de Fora, São Vicente - Graça

    Sao Vicente de Fora is a monastery that was founded in the 1100s, rebuilt in the late 1500s to…read moreearly 1600s, and is dedicated to Saint Vincent. Many Portuguese royalty were buried here. Today the building houses the Diocesan chancery, administrative services, Patriarchal Court, and museum. Admission for a guided tour is currently four euros. Tours may include the Royal Pantheon of the Bragança, daily life at the monastery, azulejos tiles that depict historical scenes, the royal burials, the Patriarchate of Lisbon, and the building architecture. Furthermore, visitors may climb to the roof to view the surrounding Alfama neighborhood. On vacation my husband and I made a brief stop here. We admired the monastery's beautiful architecture and surrounding neighborhood.

    While touring Lisbon our guide took us to the church and monastery of Sao Vincente. While the…read morechurch was beautiful, the experience at the monastery was very negative. We walked into the monastery to find a man accepting payment to enter. Payment was €4/person. One could also use the toilets for €0.50/person. We decided we wanted to use the bathroom before visiting the monastery. I asked the worker about the bathrooms and immediately he was surly. "Yes, there are bathrooms." There were 4 of us (€2 total). The smallest bill I had was a €10. He looked at me and said, "no." I apologies and said that a €10 note was the smaller I had. He still said no. I don't if he didn't have change or if he just didn't want to do it, but regardless he was rude and uninviting. Because of his bad attitude we decided not to visit the monastery.

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    São Vicente de Fora
    São Vicente de Fora
    São Vicente de Fora - Inside

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    Inside

    Igreja de São Domingos - churches - Updated May 2026

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