Faro’s Secret Spooky Bone Chapel
Portugal’s friendly Algarve capital has some surprises for tourists
Mar 22, 2007
Human bones are not the expected décor for a chapel. But in Faro, the capital of Portugal’s Algarve, the entire interior of the chapel beside the Carmelite church (Igreja do Carmo) is lined with the bones of monks. Artistically arranged in neat rows, the arm and leg bones form frames for hundreds of toothy skulls that grin out at visitors.
This macabre Capela de Ossos was the work of the Carmelite monks who built the baroque church here in 1816. Its construction displaced a cemetery where hundreds of their earlier brethren lay buried, so the bones were salvaged and recycled into this somewhat bizarre reminder of mortality.
The chapel and the beautifully gilded church it adjoins are not on the itinerary for most Algarve visitors because they are not well known – nor is Faro itself. Most visitors pass right through, landing at Faro’s airport and heading straight to the golden beaches that have made the Algarve famous. But the city is worth a stop.
About halfway between the two ends of the Algarve’s earth – the Spanish border and the 225-foot cliffs of Cape St Vincent – Faro is the region’s largest city. To the east, overlooking the Guardiana River that divides Portugal from Spain is the castle at Castro Marim, once the stronghold and headquarters of the latter-day Knights Templar, the Order of Christ.
The order’s Grand Master, Prince Henry the Navigator, plotted the winds and the currents and charted the seas from his austere little fortress high above Cape St Vincent’s unruly and treacherous seas. Faro’s own history is a bit less sexy; its main claim to immortality is as the last place to be liberated, in 1249, from the centuries-long grip of Islamic rule over the Iberian peninsula.
The bone chapel isn’t Faro’s only surprise. A 30-foot stretch of Roman mosaic floor in its Archaeological Museum, in the former convent behind the Cathedral, depicts Oceanus, god of the sea. It’s one of the largest found in the northern Romans colonies, discovered when a new sewer line was being dug.
The Cathedral itself, on the site of a mosque, is a merry blend of styles from Gothic through Baroque. Be sure to see the beautifully carved statues, the ornate gold work and the red pipe organ inside before you climb the tower for views over the harbor and coastal nature reserve.
From this vantage you’ll have a better view, too, of the white storks that build their untidy nests of twigs in the chimneys and towers of this old quarter of town. You don’t have to climb the tower to see nests atop the Arco da Villa and the nearby Misericordia church. Both face out onto the large palm-shaded garden overlooking the harbor.
The Roman mosaics and other archaeological finds in the museum, the storks and the city’s several richly decorated churches – be sure to notice the blue and white tile work, a legacy of the Islamic occupation – are enough reason for leaving the beaches for a day’s exploration of Faro. But the spooky bone chapel makes it irresistible.
