Romanesque Monastery of São Pedro das Águias

This is undoubtedly one of the most emblematic churches in the Southern Douro, restored between 1953 and 1954 by the Directorate General for National Buildings and Monuments. Unusual in its layout. Unusual in the richness and variety of its sculptural work, concentrated in the side portal and the façade facing the rock. It is also unusual because of its legendary foundation, associated with the story of D. Thedon and D. Rausendo, two knights of the Christian Reconquest, and the martyred princess Ardinia, who for love of D. Thedon left the Muslim religion for Christianity. After the foundation by D. Thedon and D. Rausendo and other hermits fleeing the Moors, which legend places around 991, there is a first stage of probable connection to the Benedictine Order. However, in 1145, the abbot D. Mendo promoted the reform of the community, which resulted in its joining the Cistercian Order. The building's ornamentation is one of its greatest attractions. The north side portal features a tympanum decorated with an Agnus Dei (Lamb of God), depicted with bent legs and a Latin inscription at the close of the arch which reads "The Lord watches over your comings and goings, now and forever" (Psalm 121:8). There are other inscriptions on a wall ashlar and in the chancel, as well as a funerary inscription engraved on the lower half of the single grave lid. The façade facing the cliff is more luxuriantly decorated, with an oriental influence, combining a trepanned cross in the center of the tympanum, symbolically representing Jesus Christ, with zoomorphic elements, vigilant lions, which also appear on the south portal of Rates, Póvoa do Varzim, with their heads turned outwards and their eyes open, guarding the entrance to the temple and its sacred interior.