Església El Carme, Catholic church in Maó, Menorca, Spain
The Església El Carme is a Catholic church on the Plaça del Príncep in the center of Maó, the capital of Menorca. The stone building has a cross-shaped floor plan, two bell towers on the facade, and a vaulted nave lit by small windows.
The Carmelites arrived in Maó at the end of the 17th century and only began building the large church in the mid-18th century, after the Pope formally recognized the monastery. The full complex was not finished until 1781, and in the 19th century the monks lost the building due to political reforms, after which it served successively as a court, a prison, and a market.
El Carme takes its name from the Carmelite order that founded it and shaped its life for decades. Today, people from Maó gather here for religious services and local festivals, and the square in front of the church is a busy meeting point in the town center.
The church sits on the Plaça del Príncep in the heart of Maó and is easy to reach on foot from most points in the town center. It is open for mass, and visitors can also walk through the interior outside of services.
The courtyard of the former convent is said to have once held the largest water tank on the island, supplying the entire monastic community. The surrounding neighborhood, known as Tanques del Carme, takes its name from the vegetable gardens that once reached toward the coast and were later built over.
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