Experience the best of Alcobaça

The Monastery of Alcobaça, founded in 1153 by Portugal's first king, Afonso Henriques, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the earliest Gothic buildings in the country. Its church has a very long, bare nave of pale stone, and the cloisters, the great kitchen and the monks' dormitory can be walked through. In the transept lie the tombs of King Pedro I and Inês de Castro, the lovers whose story is among Portugal's best-known tragedies.

The town takes its name from the two rivers that meet here, the Alcoa and the Baça. Nazaré, a fishing town with a clifftop viewpoint and giant winter waves, is about twelve kilometres to the north-west. Batalha, with another monastery on the UNESCO list, lies to the north-east, and the walled town of Óbidos is to the south-west.

Sweets made from egg yolks and sugar, a legacy of the monastery kitchens, are the town's pride, and orchards of apples and pears fill the countryside around. Ginja, a cherry liqueur, is sipped across this part of Portugal. The town is calm outside the busiest months, and the cloisters are at their best on a quiet spring morning.