How to visit and what to see in Chapel of Bones (Evora)

If you haven't visited it yet, perhaps your image of Evora, riding a Portugal, is linked to monuments such as its roman temple or on Gothic cathedral, but I already told you about the existence of a corner that is very visited by those who stop in this city of the Alentejo region.

I am referring to the so-called Chapel of Bones, a corner that occupies the space of the old presbytery of the San Francisco church.

Of course, in my recent trip through Alentejo This visit, not suitable for all audiences, could not be missed, since its somewhat macabre nature cannot be hidden.

There are other bone chapels in other European countries. Specifically, in Czech Republic you can visit a similar chapel in Kutna Hora, and in the same country you find another even more macabre place, such as the Capuchin Crypt in Brno, which I visited on my last trip to the Czech Republic.

La Chapel of the Bones of Evora It dates back to the 16th century, when the Franciscan friars of the monastery had the idea of creating it to “reflect on the human condition, the passing value of earthly life and meditate on eternal and definitive life"

Although the church of San Francisco was closed to the public, it was possible to access the Chapel of Bones through a rear door.

Chapel of Bones in Evora in the Alentejo region of Portugal

The first thing you should notice is the phrase that is written above the entrance door to the chapel, which says: “nWe bones that are here, we wait for yours.”.

Visit Chapel of Bones

What are you going to find in the Chapel of Bones?

Well, a large room just under 20 meters long, with just three small windows that let in natural light, whose walls and columns are covered with thousands of human bones.

Specifically, it is estimated that there are some 5.000 skulls and thousands of bones, all of them collected in their day from the cemeteries of the churches of Evora.

Since my visit also coincided with conservation work in the chapel, one of its most striking elements had been removed, two stuffed corpses of a man and a young man.

The legend says that they were father and son, and that the latter mistreated his mother with the father's consent, and that the latter, when she died, placed the following curse on them:May the land of your graves not destroy you!