Inside the Monastery of Batalha

It was too bright outside the monastery of Batalha that it was almost a shame to be going indoors. The monastery of Batalha looks so impressive outside that I just had to see how it looks like from the inside. What greeted me was the typicial dark insides of a gothic church. I immediately noticed that the church looks much taller inside that it did from the outside. This is probably an optical illusion brought about by the narrow insides of the church, making the roof higher than it actually is. Perhaps this was the intended effect since gothic churches have high ceilings.

And since it was bright and sunny outside, there was the nice surprise where the insides of the church were lit up by light passing through the stained glass windows in the upper reaches of the church. Unfortunately, it was so high up that I still can’t tell what the image is depicting. Stained glass windows in churches normally depict the life of Jesus Christ, the Blessed Virgin Mary, or saints. This is a nice change from the monastery of Alcobaça which somehow didn’t have stained glass windows. Perhaps the art of making them wasn’t available at the time of the construction of the monastery.

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