Aldeias Históricas de Portugal

Villages

Senhora da Azenha

Monsanto

Monsanto

The pilgrimage of Senhora da Azenha is currently held on the second Sunday of September, attracting nowadays mainly the populations of Monsanto and Penha Garcia to the sanctuary. The location of the sanctuary, haflway between those settlements, in a desert place, was in accordance with ancestral reasons that the current geography tends to erase. The old network of roads and its position on the edge (the borders of those old municipalities converge in the vicinity) may explain, in part, the choice of location. Today, the image of Our Lady is kept in the Parish Church of Monsanto; during the pilgrimage, it is carried along in a long ritualised procession. At the centre of the sanctuary, surrounded by sheds that define the camp, the hermitage stands out The current building dates from the 17th century. The main chapel opens into a single nave, which originally had a porch; its current form is the result of a thorough works campaign in the 1930s. A modest altar piece formerly held a magnificent image of the Madonna and Child, dating from the late 16th century, and today iit s a pilgrim in its own sanctuary.