Braga

Overview

Braga prays, the saying goes, and it does: this is the seat of the oldest archdiocese in Portugal, the “city of archbishops”, with a cathedral nearly a thousand years old, more churches per street than any town in the country and a baroque staircase on the hill above it that UNESCO listed in 2019. It also has 200,000 people, the third largest urban area in Portugal, a university that fills the bars on Wednesday nights and a technology sector that the city calls its Silicon Valley, so the piety comes with a young face.

The Romans founded it as Bracara Augusta in 16 BC and made it the capital of Gallaecia; the Suebi made it the capital of their kingdom from 410, one of the first to break from the empire; the archbishops made it the primate see of the Iberian peninsula, a title the cathedral still carries. It is 40 minutes from Porto by train, an easy day trip, and a better base than Porto for the Minho, Guimarães and the Peneda-Gerês park.

Neighbourhoods

The historic centre

Everything between the cathedral, the Praça da República and the Porta Nova is pedestrianised and walkable in twenty minutes: granite churches, 18th-century townhouses, traditional shops and the cafés under the Arcada. It is where to stay and where to eat, and it goes very quiet and dark after the shops shut, which Wikivoyage notes is not a reason for alarm so much as a reason to know where you are going.

Avenida da Liberdade and the station

The avenue runs south from the Praça da República to the park and the modern town; the railway station, with its high-rise terminal of 2004 beside the old one, is a ten-minute walk west of the centre, and the bus station is near the Avenida Central on the east side. The cheap pensions are on the Rua dos Chãos near the bus station.

The university and the east

The University of Minho’s campus is on the eastern edge of town on the road towards Bom Jesus, and the streets around it are the student quarter of cheap restaurants and bars. Beyond it the road climbs to the sanctuaries, where the hotel by the funicular at Bom Jesus is the quiet alternative to the city.

See & do

The two hills

Bom Jesus do Monte, 5 km east of the centre, is the reason to come: a baroque church at the top of a zigzag stairway that climbs 116 m through fountains representing the five senses and the three virtues, with a wooded park around it and a view over the city. Pilgrims climb the stairs on their knees; the rest ride the funicular alongside, the oldest in the world still moved by water balance, and walk down. Less than 2 km further up, the Sameiro sanctuary is the second largest Marian shrine in the country after Fátima, 350 m above the city, with a dome you can climb for the view over the Minho and pilgrimages on the first Sunday of June and the third of August.

The cathedral and the centre

The Sé is the oldest cathedral in the country, begun in the 11th century, consecrated in 1089 on the site of a Roman building, with a treasury shown by guided tour that holds a 10th-century chalice, an 11th-century Arab ivory casket and the Manueline chalice of Archbishop Diogo de Sousa. Around it the old town is compact: the Arco da Porta Nova, a rococo city gate of 1502 rebuilt through the 18th century, the Arcada on the Praça da República with its cafés, the Avenida da Liberdade running down from it, and the surviving keep of the medieval castle. The Árvore da Vida chapel at the seminary on the Largo de Santiago is the modern surprise, built of 20 tons of bare wood without a nail.

Festivals and football

Holy Week is Braga’s great event, a week of processions through streets hung with violet cloth and flowers; São João, on the night of 23 June, is the summer one, with two weeks of build-up; and Braga Romana, on the last weekend of May, turns the centre into a Roman market with the citizens in togas. SC Braga play in the top division at the Estádio Municipal, 1.5 km north of the centre, a 30,000-seat ground built for Euro 2004. The Teatro Circo on the Avenida da Liberdade, from the early 20th century, is the city’s stage for theatre, film and music.

Food & drink

Braga eats Minho food, which is the heaviest in Portugal: caldo verde, the potato and kale broth; maize bread; roast kid and roast veal; bacalhau, octopus and river trout; arroz de pato, duck rice, and the frango pica no chão, chicken rice cooked in the bird’s blood. Portions are for two: Wikivoyage’s warning that a full roast chicken arrives as a mountain that feeds three or four is accurate, and a meia dose, a half portion, is a normal thing to order.

The cheap restaurants are around the university on the east side and in the streets off the centre, with menus of the day at €7.50 to €8; the traditional Minho places on the Avenida Central and around the Senhora-a-Branca charge €20 to €30 a head. The wine is vinho verde, from the vineyards all around, and the pastelarias on the Rua Dom Pedro V do the coffee and cake.

Nightlife

Braga’s nightlife is a student one: the clubs open on weekends and on Wednesday, the academic night, when the bars empty into them late; the rest of the week the city is quiet. The small bars are in the old centre, on streets you will not find without a local, and the cafés under the Arcada on the Praça da República are where the evening starts. The centre is dark and empty late at night, so walk back with company.

When to go

Holy Week (March or April). The city’s own season: processions every evening, the streets dressed in violet, hotels full and the cathedral at the centre of it. Book months ahead.

May to June. Warm and green, Braga Romana on the last weekend of May, the Sameiro pilgrimage on the first Sunday of June, and São João on the night of 23 June, the biggest night of the year.

July to August. Hotter than Porto, being inland, with the university gone home and the second Sameiro pilgrimage on the third Sunday of August; the sanctuary parks are the cool places.

September to October. The students return, the bars fill again, the vinho verde harvest happens in the villages around, and the weather is mild until the rain sets in.

November to February. Wet, Minho wet, with mild days and cold nights; Christmas is done well here, and the churches and the stairway are empty.

Getting there

By air. Porto airport (OPO) is the airport, 40 minutes away: direct transfer coaches from the terminal by FlixBus, Getbus and Rede Expressos from about €4, or the metro to Campanhã or São Bento and a train, about two hours and €6 in total; a taxi is around €60.

By train. Braga is a terminus, with a high-rise station of 2004, and shares with Guimarães the role of northern end of the Alfa Pendular and Intercidades lines: about five long-distance trains a day, Porto in 40 minutes, Coimbra in 1 h 40, Lisbon in 3 h 45, plus the hourly Porto suburban trains. Because the lines end here, the neighbouring towns are awkward by rail: Guimarães and Viana do Castelo both mean going back towards Porto and changing, and the bus is quicker to either, 20 to 40 minutes to Guimarães.

By road. The A3 from Porto and on to Valença and Galicia, with motorways from Guimarães, Felgueiras and Chaves; Rede Expressos coaches from every city in the country to the bus station near the Avenida Central.

Getting around

The centre is flat and pedestrianised and needs no transport. TUB, the city bus company, runs a few dozen lines across a large municipality divided into three fare rings, coroas; the sights are in the first, Bom Jesus and Sameiro in the second, and the buses to the sanctuaries leave from the Avenida da Liberdade. Bolt and Uber cover the city, as do the Bolt and Bird scooters, and a taxi to Bom Jesus is the sensible option for a family. At the sanctuary the funicular runs up and down the hill beside the stairs.

Where to stay

Stay in the old centre, where the hotels are within a few minutes of the cathedral and the Arcada, or at Bom Jesus itself, where the hotel beside the funicular puts you on the hill at dawn before the coaches come. The budget pensions cluster on the Rua dos Chãos near the bus station; chain hotels sit by the station and on the Rua do Carmo. Prices are well below Porto’s, and the only weeks that fill are Holy Week and São João.

Practical info

Braga is safe, and the one specific warning is the emptiness of the old centre after dark, when the streets are unlit and everyone is inside the bars. The souvenirs are the painted cockerels and pottery of nearby Barcelos, and the lenço dos namorados, the embroidered lovers’ handkerchief of the Minho. Braga is a stage on the Portuguese Way to Santiago, and the yellow arrows run through the centre. For money, plugs and pharmacies see the Portugal guide.

Places to visit

Cathedral

• Braga Cathedral — Portugal’s oldest cathedral, Romanesque bones under Baroque

Church

• Bom Jesus do Monte — The zigzag Baroque stairway and the water-powered funicular