Porta Coeli Charterhouse is located on a rural site of the municipality of Serra de Porta Coeli in the province of Valencia, Spain. The name of the charterhouse, Porta Coeli, means door of heaven.
The monastery was founded in 1272 under the sponsorship of Andrés Albalat, Bishop of Valencia and confessor of James I of Aragon. From this monastery came the monks to found the charterhouses of Ara Christi and Via Coeli.
The monastery was suppressed in the 19th century, and although it tried to regain the site, the order did not return until 1943, with reconsecration in 1947. It was used as a Francoist concentration camp between 1939 and 1941. It remains the only cloistered men's monastery in the province.
Construction at Porta Coeli began at its foundation and continued for centuries, giving the monastery its eclectic architectural contributions. The church is mainly Gothic in style, from the 14th century. In the 18th century it underwent a major Baroque restructuring. Among the works in the church are paintings depicting scenes from the New Testament (18th century) by the painter José Camarón Bonanat. It has portraits of the monks Juan de Nea, Francisco de Aranda, Bonifacio Ferrer and Francisco Maresme. The ceiling was frescoed by Luis Antonio Planes. Visits to the cloisters are limited.
References:Towering 52 meters above the sea, Bengtskär lighthouse is the tallest one in Scandinavia. The building started in in 1905 after the shipwreck of S/S Helsingfors and was completed in 1906. The lighthouse was designed by architect Florentin Granholm. On December a special petrol lantern, designed and built in Paris, was brought to Bengtskär and installed atop the tower.
German fleet bombarded Bengstkär in the First World War in 1914. Since the Gulf of Finland was heavily mined, it was not until 1919 that the surrounding seas were declared safe for shipping, that the light was lit again.
After the war the military value of Bengtskär increased as part of the defence system of independent Finland. In Second World War (1941) Soviet Union made a suprise attack to island. After a bloody battle, the small Finnish garrison emerged victorious. Intermittent repairs to the facility continued during the post-war period.