Church of São Francisco

In front of you is a Gothic façade, plain, almost poor: just what you would expect of the Franciscans. What it hides inside is the exact opposite, and what it hides below is the most unsettling part of this walk.

1The church of gold

The present church was begun in 1383 and finished around 1410. In the first half of the 18th century its interior was almost entirely covered in gilded woodwork: altarpieces, columns and vaults dressed in carved wood and gold. The most extravagant piece is the Tree of Jesse, the altarpiece showing Christ's ancestry, carved by Filipe da Silva and António Gomes between 1718 and 1721.

2Fire and war

During the Siege of Porto (1832-1833), a fire caused by the fighting destroyed the convent buildings. The church survived; the ruined cloister disappeared to make way for the Stock Exchange Palace next door.

3The catacombs

Beneath the Casa do Despacho of the Third Order of Saint Francis, the lay brotherhood, lies an underground cemetery where for generations members and benefactors were buried, until the law moved burials to public cemeteries in the 19th century.

Through a glass floor you can see the ossuary: thousands of neatly stacked bones. It is no legend; it is simply how people were buried before municipal cemeteries.

4What to look for

• The Gothic rose window above the doorway, a survivor of the medieval church.
• The Baroque doorway with twisted columns, added centuries later.
• The neighbouring wall of the Stock Exchange Palace: that is where the cloister stood.