A place you may never have considered visiting, but that holds surprises that will certainly make you change your mind. A gigantic staircase to reach the top of the mountain. 537 steps. Medieval walls. This wall has the shape of a heart, how interesting. Palaces, castles, churches, and of course, mouth-watering cuisine.
Everytime we get somewhere new, a new city, we want to try something typical. Sweet or salty, the flavors of this place will surprise you. Come with us to discover the secrets of northern Portugal. Hi guys, good morning. Look at us starting a new day, a very special one.
We are in the north of Portugal, more specifically in Braga, a really beautiful place, at Escadaria dos Sentidos, which leads to Bom Jesus, a very famous sanctuary here in Braga, about which we will show you everything very soon. We are starting an adventure through the north of Portugal, and we will visit Braga,
Guimarães and Bragança. I have to say that we are really happy, because this is our first time here. So, leave your like on this video, subscribe to our channel and, of course, share it with your friends. Guys, we’ve already told you that the staircase is long,
We are here at the beginning, to show you where it really starts, in case you want to climb the 537 steps. This is the beginning of the Sanctuary of Bom Jesus. Notice that you can barely see where the stairs go to. Actually, each part
Of the staircase has a different meaning. This part is about the crucifixion of Jesus, there are several symbols along the staircase, which you can see while you rest a little bit, after all, more than 500 steps is a very long climb indeed. Many people come here to exercise, to run,
To go up and down. We’re not going to do that, okay? We’ve chosen another way to go up, you will see how right now. Let’s go. This is the easiest way to get up there, to face the 537 steps, in this cable car, easy, isn’t it?
The one-way ticket, just to get up there, costs E1.50, round trip, E 2.50. Of course this will be our option. It leaves every half hour. Let’s go then. Of course, you can choose to sit here, super comfortable, but there is another way to go up, with a much nicer view.
Look where you can stay, right in the front, standing here, just admiring the scenery. Look how nice it is! In order to show you both ways to go up, I’m already inside the cable car, which out of curiosity, is the oldest in operation in Europe,
Since late 19th century, and Tiago is at the front, I will show you him there, looking from here. How curious! The Sanctuary is entirely dedicated to the Passion of Christ, we can notice it in several places here in the church,
In the paintings, but mainly on the altar, which by the way is one of the most different we have ever seen. It represents the moment of the crucifixion of Christ, it is very interesting, we will show you some images in detail. Undoubtedly, the outside parrt is what impresses the most here.
In addition to the Baroque-style Basilica, the staircases of Bom Jesus do Monte Sanctuary, also known as Bom Jesus de Braga, are beautiful. As we’ve already said, there are more than 500 steps, divided into three sectors.
This part is the Staircase of the Five Senses, with fountains representing sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. Here is a tip, even if you go up in the funicular, it is worth walking at least along this stretch of stairs,
Both to appreciate the works of art and also to have beautiful views of Braga, from high above. We’ve taken a lunch break right at Braga city center, and I want to give you a precious tip. We’re in a very nice tourist place, a very traditional restaurant,
Over 100 years old, right next to our hotel, at the main square, and we’ll eat a menu of the day, which costs E 7, including a starter, like this vegetable soup, main course, drink and coffee. It is a very good price, in a really cool place, and check it out, how nice!
So, that is the tip, always look for these menus of the day. As I said, this restaurant has a super nice atmosphere, so, I think it’s worth it. Let’s try this vegetable soup then. Very tasty indeed.
This kind of menu is amazing here n Portugal, because you can eat very well at a super good price. There are several restaurants at this square. By the way, it was at the restaurant next to this that we tried a super traditional dish from the city. How about a Bacalhau à Braga?
Needless to say that this is the most typical dish around here, right! It comes with this onion sauce, and the potato is at first, roasted, then, fried in the cod’s oil. It must be wonderful, right, it can’t be bad. I’ll try it now. Let’s start eating.
The Raio Palace was originally built to be a presidential residence, there in the 18th century, but later it hosted a hospital, and today it is a museum. Downstairs, there are even pieces and equipments to remember the time when it worked as a hospital.
Here on the this floor there is a Sacred Art exhibit. However, more than admiring the pieces on display, when you come to visit here, pay attention to the architecture, to the building, the famous Portuguese tiles can be seen in almost all rooms, from the facade to the inside. Look how interesting.
Braga is one of the biggest cities in Portugal, with almost 200 thousand inhabitants. But the historic center can be explored on foot, without hurry, admiring every detail of the buildings. By the way, did you know that Braga is the oldest city in Portugal?
It was founded around the year 15 BC, long before the country, which means that it has more than two thousand years of history, and was first called Bracara Augusta, in honor of the Roman Emperor Augustus. Look at this super beautiful garden we are in.
Can you believe that we are inside Braga’s Cathedral? Look how curious! The cathedrals always have patios, an area for leisure and resting. Here, instead, they’ve built this super beautiful garden, but we’re inside the cathedral. The bell is ringing now, I can’t lie about being or not inside the cathedral.
The cathedral is from the 11th century, it’s very old, so you can learn a lot of history here. In a moment we’ll get inside to show you everything. Around here there are many relics, many fragments found in other areas in Braga,
Which were brought here, because as we’ve said before, this is a very old city, the oldest in Portugal, so, pieces of the wall from the Roman period, many things that were found, mostly stones, granite, were brought here,
In order to allow people to see them. That’s pretty cool indeed. Another curiosity is that the cathedral was built even before Portugal becomes Portugal. How interesting. It was the first king’s family here that decided to build this place that we are going to show you now. It’s very beautiful.
The inside of the cathedral is quite dark, and the area near the altar has a discreet decoration. A gigantic contrast with the central nave background, where two organs from the 18th century are located. It is impossible not to be impressed by the amount of decorative elements.
Time to try the famous Tibias from Braga. Tibia is this pastry here, made with sponge cake, it’s a kind of cake, and it has this shape that reminds a bone, precisely why it’s called tibia. The traditional one is stuffed with eggs, the one made at the convent,
That soft egg dough. It is sold out for today! So, we had to choose two other fillings, which are said to be just as delicious as the original. I will try this one, the raspberry one, and Fábio will try the caramel one. Let’s see whether they are good.
End of the day, time to go back to our hotel, which, in addition to being very well located, just across from Praça da República, is a charm. Look at the size of our balcony, with a panoramic view. A new day starting, great opportunity to get to know another city here in Portugal.
We are in Guimarães, very close to Braga, just about half an hour far. And I have to tell you this, if you visit Braga, you have to visit Guimarães too. We’re going to start exploring the city now. We are already here, look, in front of this beautiful building
Called Paço dos Duques. We’ll get inside there shortly. On this other side there is a statue of Dom Afonso Henriques, the founder of Portuguese nationality, the first King of Portugal. Do you realize how important this place is, and how important this city is?
Let’s go then, get to know Guimaraes, in Portugal. Here is a curiosity, when you’re visiting the statue of Dom Afonso Henriques, be sure to look at the bottom of the monument, there are three plaques here, look, which are gifts from the Brazilian government to Portugal. There’s this coat of arms from 1940,
A plaque from the 70s, and this one from the 80s, really interesting. Paço dos Duques and the Castle here in Guimarães are very close to each other, so, you can visit both. You can even buy only one ticket to visit both of them,
For E 6. Nowadays, Paço dos Duques works as a museum. In the 50’s it was entirely rebuilt, because it was abandoned and destroyed. So, it was necessary to make a very big reconstruction, and today it is possible to visit it and
See what it was like at the time, how the places worked in the 15th century, what each room was like, what the living room was like, what the chapel was like,
Which is this one you can see here behind me, right there in the middle. It’s a very interesting place to visit, full of history. It is allowed to take pictures inside here, but filming is forbidden. We’ve got a special authorization to record, in order to show you
What this emblematic place is like, how full of history it is, you will see how interesting it is, and when you come here you will definitely want to visit it too. Let’s go explore Paço dos Duques then.
The visit begins at Salão dos Passos Perdidos (meaning: room of the lost steps), this beautiful large place, that worked as a waiting room back then. People who wanted to talk to the dukes had to stay here waiting until their turn came.
But why did this room receive the name Passos Perdidos (lost steps)? Because many times they had to stay here, waiting for a long time, and then they kept walking from one side to the other, wasting their time and their steps, how interesting.
You will also find a brochure here explaining everything, this way, you can have details about each piece. That’s really cool, because you can come on your own, get a brochure like this, choose a piece, and know exactly what you’re looking at. Very nice indeed.
Now we’re going to walk around and show you some pictures. See you soon. Now we are at the main dining room, this stunning, huge space. We are showing you some images of the ceiling. It has the shape of a boat, an inverted boat hull, entirely made of wood, how impressive.
I want to talk to you a little bit about this furniture here, which gave rise to an expression that I’m sure you’ve already used. This type of table is very traditional here in Portugal,
They are single tables, which are placed next to each other, to make a bigger one, it is not just one big table. This action gave rise to the expression “set the table”, after all, you could attach as many tables you needed, depending on the number of guests. That is really amazing,
We often use an expression despite having no idea where it came from, right? This one came from here, look, from these tables all attached together. Next to Paço dos Duques there is this remarkable construction, Guimarães Castle, a 10th century fortress. There was no renovation here, everything is preserved the original way.
You can walk around the wall and see everything, right from up here, it’s very cool, it’s really worth the visit. If you buy the ticket to visit just the castle, it costs E 2, but together with Paço dos Duques, it ends up being cheaper, for E 1 only,
It’s really worth it, you can’t miss it. Let’s keep walking and discovering everything around here. As you may have noticed, everytime we arrive somewhere new, we need to try something typical. We’ve found it here in Guimarães too, it is the Guimarães Pie, it is not exactly a pie, despite having that name,
It’s more like a sweet pastry, stuffed with egg and almond jam. It looks delicious. To make it even better, it has just come out of the oven at this restaurant, it’s still warm, it smells good and we are going to try it now.
It is delicious. Guys, the outside is also sweet, there is a kind of caramel topping, something very sweet, like sugar, very tasty, very tasty, it’s definitely worth it. Less than a five-minute walk from Guimarães Castle and we’ve arrived at the medieval center. Look at this square, how cute.
We are at Santiago Square, and due to the amount of tables here, it is possible to imagine how this place must be during summer and on sunny days. Today it’s raining, it’s not so good, but even so, we can admire this very nice place, with completely
Different architecture, and super pleasant atmosphere. Let’s take a look and enjoy this square here then. If the idea is to get to know the north of Portugal, we have already decided to go up once and for all. We are at the border with Spain, in Bragança. Despite being
Full of history, this is a city tourists don’t come very often, it’s 900 years of history. You may have already noticed that we are on top of a wall, with a castle in the background, one of the best preserved castles in Portugal.
This is the region of Trás-os-Montes, and from now on, we will show everything you can to do here in Bragança. The weather is cold, it’s windy, however it’s sunny, it’s a beautiful day, so we will be able to explore a lot around here.
A very interesting thing here in Bragança is that the city wall is very tiny, and it surrounds a place known as Citadel. When seen from above, this wall is shaped like a heart, how interesting. From this place we are, it is possible to see several peculiar buildings.
First, of course, back here is the castle, from 1409, with this 33 meters high tower. But right beside is the Church of Santa Maria, the oldest in Bragança.
It’s so old, it’s even from before the castle. The castle is from the beginning of the 15th century, while the church is from the 14th century, there were several changes over time, and today it has this baroque style.
But if I turn to this side, you will see this other building, even older, from the 13th century. It’s called Domus Municipalis, and has this irregular pentagon shape. Inside this building there is a cistern, even older than the Domus, there is no idea about when it could have been built.
How interesting is that, how much history and how many differences in just one place. The Wall is not so big, so you can walk basically all along it, and it’s really worth it, because at every different corner you turn, you are presented
With even more beautiful views, like this place we’ve just found here, from where you can see both the church and the castle tower. It’s breathtaking, and now it’s lit up with the sun rays. It’s definitely worth taking some time to walk along the wall.
On this other side, you have a view to the new city, so, there is this contrast, and as we are very high up, we have a spectacular view of Bragança. We are really enjoying this city, what a find, what a cool place.
Let’s continue exploring the wall and discover what other secrets it holds. It is allowed to visit the inside of the castle. This is actually really cool, because you can access the part of the wall that you can’t see from the outside, where you can’t walk. When you are inside,
You can see it all, climb the towers, it’s super cool. The 33 meter high main tower holds a military museum, which you can also visit. The entrance ticket costs E3, it’s worth it. The sun is shining brightly, the color of the stones used to build the whole castle are very beautiful,
So we’ll take another walk around here, we’ll post some images for you, but don’t forget to visit the inside when you come here, it’s absolutely worth it. We’ve already showed you that we are staying at Abel. However, it’s not just a hotel.
In truth, it is also a very famous restaurant here in Bragança. You are already seeing several entries here on our table. Everything you see here, absolutely everything, is made in the region. From sheep’s cheese to the bread, the sausage, everything is from here, even the wine,
After all, we are in a country famous for its wine. This one is an aperitif, a super liqueur wine from Trás-os-Montes, made only with muscatel grapes, it is much sweeter, to stimulate your appetite before starting this super good meal. Wow, it’s super sweet.
While in Braga the tradition is to eat Bacalhau à Braga, Bragança is the land of meat. They’ve already warned us that here we would eat a lot of meat, because it is their flagship. This is a very tradicional dish at Abel, called posta, it looks delicious.
This is usually for just one person. You come here, order this dish with salad, with potato, and eat a lot. As we’ve already eaten too many starters, we’ve ordered just one, to share. But look at the thickness of this meat. The waiter assured us that it is super soft and juicy inside.
Let’s eat and check it out. Perfect! Late afternoon, but we couldn’t say goodbye to you without showing this view here, from São Bartolomeu church lookout point, super high. From here you can confirm that the Citadel is actually shaped like a heart.
This way, we say goodbye. If you are not subscribed to our channel, subscribe now, leave your like on this video, share it with friends, and see you next video. Bye!
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