There are many reasons to visit the Clérigos, one of such is the “Só, neste Porto só” photo display

The Clérigos Tower and Museum host the exhibition “Só, neste Porto só!” [“Alone, in this Porto alone”, free translation], a photographic record of the city, with the goal of showcasing the Invicta during the first major lockdown in the country, last year in March.

António Tavares, Executive-Director of the Brotherhood of the Clérigos says that this photographic display “is a historical record of an unprecedented moment in the history of Porto”. Before the pandemic, the Clérigos Tower and Museum would welcome as much as three thousand daily visits, and after the first major lockdown and during the pandemic there are circa 600 visits per day.

“We would like to share and show what it was like to live in the city of Porto, with no people, but we also wanted to share the other side of the pandemic, that is, we wanted to shine some light, show the hope that although life had some constraints during this lockdown period, it didn’t stop, and this context is well stated in the video by Paulo Ramalhão and in the photographs by Clara Ramalhão”, adds António Tavares, in an interview to Renascença Radio.

António Tavares furthered that the exhibit “showcases a bleak Porto, a sombre Porto, a granitic Porto, a grey Porto”, following 13 March 2020, when all was at a standstill”. That was the feeling that father Manuel Fernando and the Direction of the Brotherhood of the Clérigos wanted to showcase, “a bittersweet feeling that we wanted to display under our temporary exhibitions”.

The exhibition is on display on the fourth floor of the Clérigos Museum, and the visiting hours are from 9 am to 7 pm. The exhibit will be on show until 31 August.

The exhibit “Só, neste Porto só!” inaugurated on 18 May, by the Bishop of Porto, D. Manuel Linda. Since then, the number of visitors to both the Tower and the Museum of Clérigos has been increasing. D. António Tavares also stated to Renascença Radio that “I believe that this increasing number of visitors indicates that we will reach summer with higher numbers than the ones stated last year”.

Before the pandemic, “there were over three thousand visitors per day to the Clérigos Tower and Museum”, but at a time when health measures must be in place to fight the ongoing pandemic, “we have had to readjust the space and there is a limited number of visitors to the building”.

Still, last data shows that the number of visitors to the tower, per day, is a little over 600 people. Tickets, which grant access to the Tower, cost 6 euros.

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