The church was beautiful on the inside, as all European churches are. Ornate decoration covered the wall behind the altar, and gold plating lit up statues. However, this church was small and somewhat humble compared to the others. It wasn’t full of tourists, and the only people inside other than us were women of the congregation, obviously helping with their part of the cleaning rotation. It was quite refreshing to step into a church and know its primary purpose was as a church, not as a spectacle.
We paid a euro to one of the women working, and walked to the back of the church and out the back door into a small yard with overgrown grass and a massive palm tree. To our left, we saw the doorway to the chapel, decorated with femurs and other such bones.
You would think that walking into a chapel made out of human bones would be creepy, morbid, and unsettling. On the contrary, it was actually really interesting and intriguing. It wasn’t big, but when considering its material, it was massive. The entire chapel was constructed with the bones of monks that were buried in a cemetery that used to be behind the church. There were a total 1,245 skulls, and it was built in 1816 in memory of the monks that lived and died there. Above the door it read, “Stop here and think of this fate that will befall you.” In retrospect, this small church and chapel have been my favorite in Europe, because of their beauty and simplicity, but at the same time, extreme oddities.
After our time taking pictures and such, we headed to our next stop, Lagos. Lagos is in southern Portugal with picture perfect beaches. We wanted to do some sea kayaking, but discovered that the waters were too choppy. We headed to a beach recommended to us, and we could not have been happier. It often seems that beachfront property is quickly gulped up, leaving only condos and fancy restaurants. But the only thing next to the beach was a small lunch stop and parking lot, and the stairs that led us down to the water.
On the beach, there were only a handful of people other than ourselves. How such a place could exist, I don’t know, but it’s beauty and rock formations and caves made it more than just some sand to lay on. In fact, as the tide fell lower, and I explored the shores we couldn’t reach previously, I found a cave! In order to get in, you had to army crawl through the sand and water, but the cave was more like a big round hole in the rock. I felt like I was in The Goonies or something, having spent a day of looking at a bone chapel and then crawling through sand to find a secret opening in the rock. I have never had so much fun on a beach in my life!
We spent several hours at the beach, running around, swimming, laughing, and then decided to make our way to our ultimate destination; Lisbon. Of course, this meant we had to drive through town, and of course, this meant we would still be in some sticky situations. I am almost certain we made the news. I can see the headlines now, “Van full of American girls; clumsy and dangerous.” We ended up in some more impossibly skinny streets, the wrong way, in the middle of town with everyone staring at us. At one point, a man stuck his head out a window in a building and pointed us down which street we needed to take to get out. In Spain, we would’ve been honked at, looked at with disgust, and basically stressed out by everyone’s reactions. However, everyone is Portugal was just so nice! No one honked when we needed time to turn around, no one yelled or ignored us when we needed help. Even if they laughed at us, they still helped us and made sure we made our way out safely. Portuguese people are just plain nicer.
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