Braga

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…

Heavy religious atmosphere. Not my scene.

I was here and loved it, especially loved these sort of meat pies they call Frigideira (word for the name of the typical Braga meat pie, also the Portuguese word for pan) Though there weren’t any dustbins there was practically no dirt in site. I surely loved it there, the people the place, everything, though I stayed for a short time I found it to be lovely!