Portugal - Batalha Abbey

Batalha's abbey is one of Europe's greatest Gothic masterpieces and is protected as a World Heritage monument.

It was built in 1388 after King João I made a vow to the Virgin that he would build a magnificent monastery if she granted him a victory over the Castillians in the Battle of Aljubarrota. An equestrian statue of Nuno Alvares Pereira, the king's commander at the battle, stands before the southern facade.

The exterior possesses innumerable pinnacles, buttresses and openwork balustrades above Gothic and Flamboyant windows, while the front portal is decorated with statues of the apostles in intricate Gothic style.

In the vast Gothic interior are 16th-century stained-glass windows of exceptional beauty, and in the Founder's Chapel are the tombs of King João, his queen Philippa of Lancaster, and of their younger sons, including Prince Henry the Navigator.

The Royal Cloisters were first built in Gothic style in the late 1380s, but Manueline embellishments were added a century later. Typical Manueline symbols such as plants and flowers of the newly discovered lands and other seafaring motifs carved in every arch illustrates the variety and excitement of Portuguese art during the Age of Discovery.

The Chapter House guards the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers, where the bodies of two casualties of World War I lie. The vaulting is an outstandingly bold feat (an unparalleled example of the Gothic style), rising to a height of 20m (60ft) without intermediary supports -- only condemned criminals were used to build it.

A magnificent Gothic doorway almost 15m (50ft) high with Manueline decoration gives access to the roofless Unfinished Chapels, perhaps the most astonishing part of Batalha. Seven chapels radiate from an octagonal rotunda, divided from each other by deeply carved incomplete pillars that create an effect of oriental exuberance. The massive buttresses were designed to support a dome that was left unfinished.