There are many places I would like to visit in my country and this one is at the top of my list. A friend of mine was there in a college assignment to draw the Monastery and she fell in love with it, taking lots of wonderful photographs that I enjoyed seeing.
The Batalha Monastery is located in the Town of Batalha, in the District of Leiria. It has both elements of late Gothic architecture and Manualine style and its original name is Monastery of Saint Mary of Victory. It was built as a tribute to the Virgin Mary, to whom the King D. João I attributed the Portuguese victory over the Castilians in the Battle of Aljubarrota in 1385.
This impressive Monastery took two centuries to be built, from 1386 until 1517. It was voted one of Portugal’s Seven Wonders in 2007 and it was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1983.
Both postcards were sent by our kind Helena (leninha): the one on the top shows the front of the Monastery, the other shows an arcade screen in the Cloister of King João I, inside the Monastery.
Source: Wikipedia.
