One of the most beautiful and magnificent Cistercian monasteries in the province of Zamora is the Cistercian Monastery of Santa Maria, in the municipality of Granja de Moreruela.
The monastery preserves the size of the imposing Cistercian abbey ordered to be built by Alfonso VII. Built at the end of the 12th century, it is in the Romanesque style with elements of transition to Gothic.
The chancel is the largest part of the complex, formed by a superposition of levels: apses, a polygonal ambulatory and the central apse.
The walls of the Monastery are used by white storks to breed
This monastery complex, where Cistercians once prayed and worked day after day, even as a ruin still provides impressive evidence of the magnificent architecture. This monastic order (the order's Latin name is "Ordo Cisterciensis") takes its name from the French town of Citeaux in Burgundy, where the first monastery was founded in 1098. It is a reform branch of the Benedictines.
XII century. The Cistercian Monastery of Santa María de Moreruela originally had a huge church, 63 meters long by 26 meters wide, between the ends of the transept.