Santa Clara

Monuments in Santa Clara

Two monasteries of the same name: one drowned and closed, one on the ridge with a queen buried twice inside it.

The long baroque facade of the Mosteiro de Santa Clara-a-Nova above Coimbra

Mosteiro de Santa Clara-a-Nova

Queen Isabel is buried twice in this hilltop monastery: in silver and crystal above the altar, and in the Gothic tomb her nuns dragged up from the flooded river bank.

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Excavated Gothic nave and cloister walls of the Mosteiro de Santa Clara-a-Velha beside the Mondego, Coimbra

Mosteiro de Santa Clara-a-Velha

The Gothic monastery the Mondego drowned, dug out of the silt in the 1990s and closed again since October 2025 for works. No reopening date has been published.

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