Igreja de São Gonçalo

16th-century church and monastery dedicated to Amarante's matchmaker saint

The 16th-century church and monastery of São Gonçalo dominates the south side of the bridge, its richly carved Renaissance portal facing the river. Construction was started under King João III in 1540 and continued under three later kings — the row of crowned royal heads above the portico belongs to all four — and the building was completed only in 1620.

Inside, the gilded baroque retábulo and the tomb of São Gonçalo himself are the centrepieces. The adjoining cloisters now house the Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso Museum, so a single visit covers both. The monastery is also worth circling from outside for the view back over the bridge and town.

things to do religious site
A story
São Gonçalo, a 13th-century Dominican friar, is venerated locally as the patron saint of marriages. Unmarried women still rub his tomb to ask for a husband by next year, leaving the recumbent figure of the saint with permanently shiny fingers. The June festival in his honour involves an exchange of phallic-shaped pastries — *doces de São Gonçalo* — between sweethearts, one of the more unusual surviving folk traditions in Portugal.