It must be twelve or thirteen years now since I was in Braga…I had a couple of feiends who spent the summer working in the university, so I went over at the end of August for a holiday. They managed to arrange a room for me in the university halls – very clean, great everything I needed and ridiculously cheap !

Braga’s most notable ‘site’, I suppose, was Bom Jesus – a shrine built on a hill overlooking the city. It wasn’t an easy climb up to it – I was very grateful for the cafe at the top…and I’m pretty sure there was a small boating lake there too !

Braga also has a football team in Portugal’s top division. In recent years, they moved into a new stadium biult for the 2004 European Championship – but the ‘old’ stadium was very cool. (It looked a lot like a Roman Ampitheatre). I remember the town market was held in the car park while I was there…

There were also plenty of cafes in town – I’ve had a soft spot for Super Bock ever since ! I was introduced to a Portuguese spirit one night – can’t quite remember the name of it, though. I think it was made from grapes and but I thought it was similar to Austrian Schnapps….

I always intended to go back one day…