Cultural Center of Cascais, the Piedade Convent
In 1641 Count of Monsanto António de Castro had a dream: he wanted to build the first official school of Philosophy. Unfortunately it became a convent until 1834. When the nuns left the Covent it stayed abandoned for a long time. Just in the end of 19th century Visconde de Gandarina bought the place and decided to build the palace and the gardens as we know today.
In 20th century the place was left to the family Espírito Santos and nowadays it belongs to the City Council, which turned it into a Cultural Center. The official opening, after several works on the building and the gardem, was in May 2000.
It’s a place to promote art... all kind of art, but mostly plastic arts. There are several meetings and workshops, as well as some concerts and exhibitions.
The place also has a Chapel with an auditorium for the official seminars. It is not a religious place anymore, but it became perfect to visit and admire art. There were already exhibitions with original works from international artists such as Picasso, Konstantin Bessmertny and Jules Maidoff.
It’s a pink house right in the center of the village, you can’t miss it!