Monastery of Santa Clara

The Monastery of Santa Clara is the most important historical monument in Vila do Conde. Founded in 1318 and greatly expanded during the 15th and 16th centuries when the town was wealthy from shipbuilding, it sits on a rise above the River Ave and dominates the town's skyline. The church's Manueline-Gothic interior contains the elaborate tombs of its founders, some of the finest funerary sculpture in northern Portugal.

Part of the monastery now houses a youth justice facility, which limits access to the church and some of the monastic buildings, but the exterior and the main church can be visited. The views from the monastic terraces across the river mouth and out to the Atlantic give a good sense of the strategic and economic position that made Vila do Conde such an important medieval port.

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The monastery was founded in 1318 by Afonso Sanches — the illegitimate son of King Dinis I — and his wife Teresa Martins. Afonso Sanches was involved in a long civil war against his half-brother King Alfonso IV, which he eventually lost. He and his wife are buried in stone tombs inside the church, their effigies carved with the precision that Manueline-era craftsmen reserved for the highest patrons. The monastery was subsequently one of the richest in Portugal, enriched by the trade wealth of the Age of Discovery.

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