Refettory’s door

n old Italian proverb says that “Epiphany sweeps away all holidays“, meaning that on January 6th the two weeks-long Christmas break, normally characterized by revelry and interruption of any sort of diet, comes to an end. Yeah, sometimes it’s good to have self-indulgence. I agree.
After all, we don’t wanna do like the monks of the Alcobaça Monastery in Portugal.
In fact, those monks are quite draconian towards the pleasures of the table. So much so that the door that opens onto the refectory was built very narrow (two meters high, and only 32 centimetres wide). This, according to legend, was to force the poor monks to keep fit, otherwise with the increase in waistline, they would not have been able to enter the hall where meals were held (so that fasting would have “corrected” them, the Abbot must have devilishly thought).