Tourists looking for a budget destination should consider Portugal. Not only is it a place where the traveler can still find value for his dwindling dollar, money is flowing into Portugal from the EU to improve infrastructure. That means that roads and railroads have been getting modernized to further increase the ease of travel.
And don’t forget the north of Portugal. In some ways, the north is the most “Portuguese” part of Portugal. Even though Braga is Portugal’s fifth largest city, when you’re in the historic center you don’t get the feeling that Braga is large at all. Sitting in the main square in the cool of a summer’s eve, sipping a glass of wine while watching the fountains illuminated by changing colored lights will make you wonder why your town doesn’t have such facilities.
But there’s more. On a hill just 5 kilometers out of Braga is the Bom Jesus Sanctuary. It’s the most photographed church in Portugal. You can take Portugal’s oldest funicular (a water-counterbalanced funicular!) up to the top. It has some of the most interesting stairs you’ll ever see. Penitents climb them on their knees.
If you’re not one for staying in the city, Portugal’s rural north is lush with greenery which cools it, even in the summer. You cold do worse than renting an apartment between Braga and Bom Jesus like Aparthotel Mae D’Agua Studio. It’s a decent compromise between a hotel and vacation rental. You get your linens changed daily and your bed made. It’s in a quiet resort where you can even lose some money at the casino or boat in the lake.
Give the north of Portugal a try some day, especially if you like ancient monuments, long walks on deserted beaches and interesting small towns that seemed stopped in time–places where people haven’t even heard of Starbucks and McDonalds.
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Braga is indeed wonderful– only it’s Portugal’s third, not fifth, largest city, having recently surpassed Coimbra. It’s also one of Portugal’s oldest cities– as “Bracara Augusta”, it was the capital of the Roman Province of Gallicia (the first Christian martyr, St. Vincente, was killed in Braga in 303AD).
When the Roman Empire fell at the end of the 4th Century, northeastern Iberia, with Braga as its capital, fell to the Swabians, a Germanic tribe that was Christianized well before the Franks of what’s now France, and the Sé, Braga’s remarkable cathedral, was started in the 10th Century over the site of an earlier Swabian church (with stones from the Roman walls!). The Sé has a remarkable treasury/museum which includes cathedral artefacts dating back a thousand years, including an 11th Century chalice and paten used by the then-archbishop, along with some amazing art and ivory statuettes, ecclesial jewelry, etc., reflecting Portugal’s one-time colonial wealth.
There are multiple museums and galleries in the city, ranging from pre-Roman archeological museums to those focussing on modern art, a lively theater scene (Teatro Circo is worth touring even if nothing is playing!), and Braga is also in the center of the ‘Vinho Verde’ country (a marvelous, light, ‘new wine’), and just north of the Douro, home of Port wines.
And, for some reason, most tourists have never heard of it!