San Blas Church

This building will catch our attention from the first glance. You have barely arrived and you are already surprised by its iron tower. Several welded plates form a modern bell tower that with time and oxidation have taken on colors and shades of great beauty. It replaces one that had to be demolished due to the ruin it threatened after the last earthquake in Lisbon.

The metal combines perfectly with the quartzite, a local stone, with which the walls of the church are built.

It is small, the original shape was a rectangle to which a polygonal apse was added at one end in the 16th century.

WORSHIP
CHURCH

The exterior walls are with the stone uncovered, so we can see the variety of sizes used and the earth that joins them. In some areas, brick is used to fill or point corners. A brick frieze with rounded shapes runs around the perimeter of the nave, blending perfectly with the Arabic tile of the roof.

Four buttresses on each side break the monotony of the rectangular nave, providing robustness and marking a different and original profile to the whole.

A small porch between two of the buttresses on the south side protects the entrance, the arch supporting the canopy is almost flat. It occupies the entire section between both walls, the arch of the door is of half point made in rustic brick.

Nearby, the remains of an old door appear walled in between a new window. A brick alfiz tops the painting. In another time it could have been decorated with sgraffito or paintings.

The interior is painted white on walls and ceilings; only the four arches that support the roof, the entire dome of the presbytery and a couple of lines near the ceiling mark the reddish brick that forms them.

The floor tiles are also of this tone, which gives the whole an unusual harmony. The simplicity of shapes and colors takes each of the corners in which the general sobriety is broken with the burst of color of the flowers that embellish it. There is no ornament topping the altar, only a crucifix of Jesus.

The original altarpiece had to be restored due to its poor condition. Today it is in its original place, showing off the paintings that seem to be very old… They portray curious medieval scenes in which men, religious, buildings, trees… are represented.

The Virgin of the Rosary and Saint Teresa of Jesus are the only images in this privileged place. In the arch that frames it we have a carving of the Heart of Jesus and another of San Blas, one on each side.

Some pictures and the Stations of the Cross marked on the walls will be the only decoration we will find. The baptismal font is located in a kind of small chapel at the back of the nave. It is a piece of granite carved with some geometric shapes. It is very tastefully carved.

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