Visitors will be able to “discover”, free of charge, this “place of prayer and contemplation”, during visits every Tuesday and Saturday, from 10 am to 1 pm, or on guided tours with prior registration before the convent is closed again to the public.

“In this moment of transition, FEA invites you to participate in the last guided tours of the monastery, in a unique opportunity to learn about rituals, habits and spiritual exercises practiced by those who inhabited it”, according to a statement from the Eugénio de Almeida Foundation (FEA).

The Monastery of Santa Maria Scala Coeli (Stairs of Heaven), on the outskirts of the city, was, “for 60 years, an inaccessible space, marked by the enclosure, silence and recollection of the Carthusian community”, recalled the FEA.

The last four monks of the Order of Saint Bruno left at the end of 2019, and the Archbishop of Évora, Francisco Senra Coelho, revealed, at the time, that the Cartuxa Convent would be occupied by nuns.

“Soon”, cloistered life will return to the monastery, but first the foundation wants to make known “this example of religious architecture, unique in Portugal”.