Grim Mourning and welcome to The Grim. I'm your host, Kristin. And today's episode will be opening the gate and entering the Chapel of Bones, located in Portugal. So grab your favorite mug, cozy up, and let's take a dig into history. In a world overflowing with sought after travel destinations. One country that has recently captivated wanders is Portugal as one of the most visited places in the post-COVID era. Travelers have been drawn to its stunning landscapes, rich cultural traditions and timeless villages as steeped in history. Yet beneath the sunlit streets and rolling vineyards, some have encountered something far more unsettling Portugal's eerie and haunting chapels of bones, where the dead simply do not rest in silence. That's why it also in this episode's introduction, I didn't name a specific town, but simply Portugal as a whole. It's difficult to imagine any burial site surpassing the chilling grandeur of the Capuchin catacombs. But Portugal's several chapel bones certainly gave their monastic counterparts a run for their money in the picturesque medieval World Heritage town of Évora. It's a city of a golden light in ancient stone, a place where history is alive through winding streets. But beneath its warm facade, something lurks a shrine of the dead, where time has collapsed and the past refuses to stay buried. The Cabala deserves its meaning. Chapel of Bones in Portuguese stands in eternal silence. A crypt of skulls and bones arranged not for concealment, but for confrontation. By the late 16th century, the town's cemeteries were overflowing. Corpses pressed against the limits of consecrated grounds, the Franciscan monks had a choice. Bury the dead deeper, forget them, or force the living to face them. They chose the latter. The monks gathered the remains of 5000 souls, stripping away flesh, identity and memory, leaving only the skeletal husks of what had once been. Then, with careful precision, they built the chapel itself from the bones of the dead. The remains fused into the very walls that can find them. Skulls stare from the pillars, their hollow sockets, watching their brittle bones held together by cement, ensuring they will never leave the ceiling. Once merely brick is now a canvas for the dead. Adorned with grim motifs that whisper of lives long lost time, though, has not been kind to this crypt. Some skulls are missing, stolen by unknown hands, while others bear their crude markings of graffiti. An act of defiance or desperation scrawled upon the remains of a forgotten danger. The living must now follow the rules of the dead. Modesty is required. No short shorts, no bare shoulders. The punishment, a flimsy paper cover up, if not followed, offered for a single euro, as if cloth could shield the gaze of so many empty eyes before stepping into a virus crypt of bones. Visitors must pass through a museum, a shrine to the capuchin monks who once built a sanctuary of their own in bodies and bones. In Sicily, these were the same monks that were featured on episode 24 in the Grimm. It tells their story, but it simply does not tell the stories of the thousands now entombed in these walls. Their voices remain unheard. Their stories, though, were never meant to be told, though. As you step inside, you're greeted with a chilling welcome stating, We the bones here await yours in Portuguese. The walls stretch high constructed from endless rows of skulls, their hollow sockets watching from every direction, each rib, femur and vertebrae stacked meticulously forming the grotesque patterns in the stonework. Nearby the altar, a small white coffin rests the remains of three Franciscan monks who founded the Church of Saint Francis in the 13th century. Their bones are honored among the anonymous, the presence woven into the silent fabric of the chapel. But not all who reside here are at rest. Hanging from the walls by chains are to this indicated bodies that watch in silent agony. Their dried skin and clinging to their brittle bones mouths, frozen beads scream a sight that many find too much to bear. One is a man, but the other a child. The records tell their story, but prayers are said to soothe their suffering. Their presence is an accusation, a question that will never be answered but impressionable beyond measure. A poem written by one of the fathers lingers in the air carved into a wooden plaque. It goes even further to impress upon visitors stating, Where are you going in such a hurry? Traveler Pause. Do not advance your travel. You have no greater concern than this one. Then on which you focus your sight recon. How many have passed from this world foretold in your similar end? There is a good reason to reflect. If only all did the same ponder you so influenced by fate. Among all those concerned of this world, so little do you reflect on death. If by chance you glance at this, please stop for the sake of your journey. The more you pause, the further on your journey you shall be. The poem finally revealing to visitors the Maccabees Chapel true meaning and the reason for its existence. The delicate nature of human morality. And the inevitable fate that awaits us all. Raising the timeless question our very existence. There is no comfort here, no soft candlelight to warm the bones above the altar. A final message awaits in Latin chilling visitors to their bone, as if the poem wasn't enough, stating I die in the light. The day I die is far better than the day I was born. Visitors speak of an unnatural stillness in the chapel. A wait in the air that does not lift even when they leave. Some claim they've heard their own names whispered, though the chapel is empty. Others describe a sensation of fingers grazing their shoulders. But when they turn, they only find stone in shadow. The dead do not rest in the chapel to also Navarro. They do not slumber. Nor do they forget. They wait in silence, in darkness, cemented within the chapel walls. If one Chappell bones wasn't haunting enough, another lurks in the depths of Barrow, Portugal, concealed behind the grand facade and assassin Harold DeGarmo. Church is a chilling spectacle, a chamber where the remains of the dead line, the walls, their silent presence, a stark reminder of morality, a place where death is not hidden, but laid bare for all to see. To some, it is a grotesque spectacle. To others, an irresistible summons. This is no refuge for the living, but it's a monument to the dead. The twin bell rings of the Croatia to Carmel rise against the Algarve sky. Their pristine, whitewashed exterior. A deception, a mask hiding what lurks within. Storks nest in the tower, oblivious to the history buried beneath their purchase. The baroque beauty of the church with its gilded wood carvings and stained glass windows, lures visitors inside with promises of grandeur. But what waits be on the altar is something far darker, behind the ornate facade. Beyond the delicate carving a slice that coupled to Orpheus, a chamber of the dead built from the remains of those who once prayed within these walls. The bones of 1200 Carmelite monks, men who devoted their lives to faith, who were unheard from the nearby cemetery. Their bodies no longer given the luxury of rest. Their femurs and skulls are stacked into the walls, packed tightly together. Their final purpose not peace, but spectacle. The chapel was completed in 1816, but its message is eternal. The walls are a warning, a testament to the brevity of life and the inevitable of decay. To some, it's a call to righteousness, a reminder to live well. To avoid the eternity of hell. To others, it's simply a practical solution of a way to clear the overcrowded cemeteries of the town at the time, a mass grave disguised as a shrine. Stepping inside, though, the air shifts, the smell of each stone and dust cling to the damp walls. The silence punctuated only by the echo of footsteps on the cold floor. The monks skulls peer outward, frozen in time, their expressions long lost to decay inside skulls clear from every surface, thousands of them stacked in record patterns, as if watching or waiting. There is no escape from their gaze. Their presence is absolute encompassing and beyond impression. The capital also assassin Ferro, though, is small, almost suffocating, a crypt hidden in sacristy, tucked away behind the main church like a secret too unsettling to face directly. The contrast between its horror and the elegant opulence of the church's main altar is unsettling. The walls are not set, although the formal gleam with gold intricate carvings wrapping around its stunning altars, the organ, majestic and towering, sings with the voice of heaven. But in the garden, just beyond these gilded halls, the voice of the dead is silent, though never absent. The church's beacon in Pharaoh's old town, its presence undeniable. The baroque facade with its touch of a yellow round. The upper windows survived the infamous 1755 earthquake. Standing tall with a city crumbling around it. But the true heart of this place is not found in its grandeur. Or the gold is found in the bones of the forgotten. The walls of the silence and the uneasy knowledge that one day all who enter will share the same fate of those who already wait inside. A grim message also looms at the entrance mosaic overall, gaining a warning, saying Stop here. I consider that you will reach this state, too. Although there are no official records of hauntings, the air itself feels heavy. There was something unseen. Some visitors swear that in its eerie silence you can hear the faint rustling of robes. Perhaps the monks who once walked these halls have never truly left. To the east, Beyond the rolling hills and quiet streets of Alentejo lies a place built from tragedy that Campo de Osos Campo May ha is no ordinary chapel. It's a shrine of devastation, a monument to the dead who never saw coming. It stands as the second largest bone chapel in Portugal. Its walls built not from just mortar and stone, but from the remains of those who perished in one of the darkest days in the town's history. In the year 1732, a story of a Cabo mare landing crashing through the sky as if the heavens themselves had turned against the earth. Then it struck. The castle's powder magazine. A bolt of explosions hidden within the fortress of the walls. The blast was immediate, merciless, and it tore through the town with an unstoppable force, leveling homes, tearing bodies apart and leaving little behind. But fire, rubble and silence. More than two thirds of the town's population were raised in a single moment. Then built in 1766, the chapel was intended to serve as a reminder, a place where the dead would not be forgotten. Its walls pulse with the remains of the townspeople, their bones woven into the foundation and eternal presence among the living. The floor, now of butter and stone, is the only thing new here. Everything else is what can be described as death, preserved in Baroque grandeur to fall skeletons stand framed along the sides. There are empty sockets staring outward, watching. According to the legend, the bones enshrined in the chapel belong to the victims of a catastrophic explosion. There still remains carefully collected and preserved in solemn tribute to the town's tragic fate. But the truth tells something different, perhaps even stranger. Anthropological studies have revealed that no signs of violent impact could be found on the bones. There's no burns, no fractures, no evidence of bodies torn apart in the blast. The depth of the walls did not, in fact, die from fire and destruction. So then the question remains of where did they come from? The mystery lingers in the silence of the chapel. Studies suggest that the bones were consumed from the old regime. At least Churchyard roof in the town was rebuilt after the explosion. The very ground they once rested in was disturbed, scattered. Their final piece is stolen. And so they were gathered and placed here within the chapel. Bones, were they? But that may never be buried again. Now the dead surrounding the living, their remains turn into spectacle, their final resting place on display for all who dare to enter. But some visitors see the air in the chapel. Feels too still, too heavy, as if something unseen lingers just beyond the veil of sorrow, part sensation of being watched, even when alone. The archipelago also Scapa Omaha, is more than a relic of the past. It's a monument of disturbance, a place of the dead, where on earth rearranged and left without a name, without a face, without a voice. The explosion took their homes and time took their graves. Now they remain forever fused. And the chapel walls waiting. No ghosts walk here. Instead, there something far worse. The weight of thousands of unfinished stories. Visitors often report a sudden sense of dread, as if something unseen lingers just beyond the edge of perception. Standing still long enough. And you may feel it too. The presence of thousands of souls staring back at you. If you haven't had your fill of the Chapel of Bones just yet. Had to come on a fourth day. A town The time has passed over its streets, quiet, its presence unassuming, but within its heart, lay something far darker than this sleepy facade suggests hidden behind an iron gate, barely more than a closet in size. The capital also de Montfort, is Portugal's smallest Berlin Chapel. Yet within its cramped walls, death feels closer than ever. The chapel is no more than five metres long by three metres wide. But in this tiny space, the remains of over 600 individuals have been pressed into the walls. Their skulls packed tightly together, their bones stacked and wedged into every inch available. Unlike the grandeur of your brother's ossuary or the sweeping halls of Khobar, Manafort's chapel offers no distance, no space to breathe. Here, the dead are mere inches away. Their empty sockets nearly level with the eyes of those who dare to enter. A small altar stands in the center. Its flickering candles casting on shadows across the crumbling skull surrounding it. The crucified Christ looms above silent. His gaze fixed upon the eerie arrangements of bones that now serve as his congregation. The air inside is thick, unmoving, as though time itself refuses to stir within these walls. Most visitors only glimpse the chapel from behind the iron gate, peering into its depths but never stepping inside. Not all who come here wish to cross the threshold. 3 seconds far from the monastery, Tourism Board often finds herself unlocking the door for those curious enough to enter. They're usually very surprised, she says. Some people don't want to go in. Others want to see it in detail. It is something out of the ordinary, and some people are very curious. But curiosity comes with a price. The walls fill to close the silence. Too deep. Step inside and you feel as if you become part of the chapel. Trapped between the past and the present, the bones themselves tell a fragmented story. Although the chapel was built in the 18 century, its remains are much older. They're taken from the town's original cemetery, which had to be cleared to make room for the living. Expansion came at a cost and the dead were given no choice but to move. Stacked, arranged and put on display. Inspired by the capital or souls in Navarra. The people of Montfort, they followed them. A cop tradition of the time transforming the displaced remains into something both sacred and unsettling. The chapel stands beside an even older one. Now, nothing more than ruins. Archaeological work has uncovered a single skeleton buried beneath it, as though one lone soul remained behind while the others were taken away. Unlike other places where road work hasn't Earth forgotten bones, most of what is dead have remained undisturbed, awaiting their final resting place is no longer beneath the earth, but within these walls kept neatly in rows, their grins frozen in silence. The town girl in that land was taken. But here, in this tiny chamber of death, they remain forever watching, forever waiting. Unlike the grander chapels, this one is too small to escape from Stand in its center. And you are completely surrounded by death. There are no reports of hauntings, but it's said that people leave in a hushed silence, unable to shake the feeling that they were not alone. In the town of Alcantara. An unsettling quiet. It's calm, almost unnatural, yet concealed within the modest church of Knossos and Harar. This also lies something far more disturbing a sanctuary where the remains of the dead have become part of the structure itself. And another Chapel of bones line from the floor to ceiling with human skull and bones, some yellowed with age, and others eerily white. Unlike Évora or Fara, this chapel is smaller. Its skeletal walls are Preston tightly around you, as if the dead still longed to reach out. No plaques tell their names. No records exist of who they once were. Some say the bones were taken from a forgotten cemetery, but others whisper of something far worse. And the quietest moments visitors have reported hearing a soft rhythmic tapping, as if unseen fingers were drumming against the walls. Sadly, not much history can be found on this chapel. But it's still worthy of a visit. If you're in Portugal. Beneath the warmth of the sun and the hum of crashing waves. Lagos thrives as a city of beauty. Its golden beaches and lively streets, luring travelers from all over the world. But beyond the postcard perfect scenery, hidden in the shadows of its history, lies something far darker. Another chapel abounds within the church of Sao Sebastiao. The Bone Chapel stands as another shrine of human remains stacked one upon another. A space where death has been arranged into carefully grotesque cemetery. This church itself dates back to the 14th century. First built as a hermit, is consecrated to necessary Curacao. By the 16th century, it was transformed into a church dedicated to Sao Sebastian. It's a gothic portico and intricately sculpted motifs meant to inspire reverence. Inside Doric columns separate is three naves and an exquisite statue of Our Lady of Grace, a gift from King Gal. The fifth stands in quiet splendor. But no amount of gold or artistry can soften what awaits beyond these grand halls. The Bone Chapel is very small, almost unassuming. But step inside this cabinet of a McJob in the air shifts, the walls pours with hundreds of skulls, their empty sockets like hollowed wounds. Their stories long forgotten. Arranged in careful patterns, they create a mockery of beauty. A silent mural of the dead. And yet, beneath the eerie stillness, Lagos holds a darker past, one that cannot be ignored. This is the hub of the Atlantic slave trade, a place where thousands of lies were stolen, bought and sold. Men, women and children ripped from their homelands perished in nameless suffering, their fate swallowed by the city's past. Official records claim that the bones within this chapel belonged to monks and townspeople. But there are whispers, unsettling rumors that the chapel carries a heavier burden that not all the dead were given their place of willingly here. Visitors do not stay long within the chapel. Many describe a crushing sensation in their chest as if the walls themselves were closing in. The silence here is unlike any other, not the peaceful, quiet of a sacred space. But something else. Something waiting. No one speaks too loudly within these walls, as if the chapel itself is listening. The chapel bones in Portugal are more than relics of the past. Are silent tombs standing in defiance of time? Their walls pulsing with the presence of those who were never truly laid to rest. Though separated by distance and countless souls entombed within their walls. Each chapel whispers the same haunting message to those who enter. Memento Mori. The monks who built these shrines intended for the living to confront death to fill its wake. Pressing down, to understand that life is nothing more than a fleeting moment between dust and decay. But perhaps they never considered what might happen when the dead were disturbed, when their bones are ripped from the earth, stripped of their silence and forced into an existence neither buried nor free. Now they remain not at rest, but trapped within the walls of stone and mortar, their hallowed eyes forever watching their presence lingering along after the last visitor has gone. In seeking to remind the living other morality the monks may have unknowingly bound the dead to something far worse than the grave. Each chapel leaves an imprint, its presence lingering long after visitors step back into the world of the living. No one leaves unchanged. It's impossible to predict how these chambers of the dead will settle in the minds of those who dare to enter. For though the skulls may appear a uniform, each one carries a silent message, a whisper of life once lived. And in their collective presence, a truth takes root. A mark left upon the soul, subtle or profound, but inescapable all the time. Some may walk away feeling only the weight of history. Others send something far more unsettling. While there is the power of suggestion, the lingering echoes of the past, or something beyond human understanding. One thing is for certain the bones within these chapels do not forget. They do not slumber. They do not rest. And as you step back into the daylight, leaving behind the hallowed stairs of the dead, a question lingers in silence. Wasn't only history pressing in on you or have the dead found a way to leave their mark lingering in the shadows of your mind, waiting to be remembered? The grave crime for the Chapel of Bones was an espresso from the cafeteria politic. Another For more honorary grinds in the area, please visit the dash. Grim, dark, calm. For now. We're closing their gate on Portugal's Chapel of Bones. We hope you enjoyed our dig into history. If you did subscribe today. Join us next time when we open the gate. The Grim.