A town (really, a small city that used to be a quaint town) that lies 60 km northeast of Porto. By car, it’s 45-50 minutes. We chose the regional train. You can’t beat 3 euro round trip per person. Unless you factor in the 25 stops. Still, just under 1 hour 20 minutes.
9:00 on a Saturday morning…our earliest time ever leaving the abode. We hopped the 900 bus (empty) and rode the 10 minutes to the São Bento train station. We had called in yesterday and purchased our budget tickets. Any train to Braga, any time we were told. Just validate your ticket (wave it in front of the scanner) before you get on the train.
What’s in Braga? Well…35 churches, way fewer people than Porto, and Bom Jesus de Monte (good Jesus from the hill) where, it was claimed, penitents climbed the 577 steps on their knees. Ouch! We saw none of these penitents but perhaps that’s tomorrow, Easter Sunday.
Instead of walking the 4 miles and then climbing 577 steps, we hailed a taxi at the Braga train station to get up the mountain to the Bom Jesus. Aren’t we the lazy ones? Grubb will describe the place as an Easter theme park. I’ll go with that. And I’ll leave Grubb to explain.
To get back into town, we did climb down the 577 stairs. But easy, peasy. The stairs were wide and flat and after every 8 or 9 stairs, there was a wide landing. In no time, we were down…well to a place that was still 3 or so miles from the center of town.
Lucky us, busses are everywhere. We hopped the #2 bus which let us off close to a pastelaria advertising “the world needs more natas”. Why yes, it does. A cappuccino, 2 sparkling waters and 2 natas later (Remember, natas are those flakey, custardy treats that everyone raves about here), we were off to the Sė (cathedral).
Its a cathedral. Catedral de Santa Maria de Braga. Perhaps Grubb will elaborate? oh…he didn’t.
Reverse our train journey to return to Porto. As we walked home from the station, we were debating a picnic dinner at home versus a restaurant meal. As fortune would have it, we passed a place selling yummy looking empanadas. We picked out 4 to take home. All excellent. Four cheese (oozing), Caprese (cheesy, tomato, oregano), carbonara (cheese, ham) and a spicy beef thing that I’ve forgotten the name of.
Fun fact: empanadas originated in Galicia (Spain) and Portugal in Medieval Iberia around the time of the Moorish invasions.
Sorry ice cream fans. The natas did me in for the sugar consumption.Tomorrow, maybe tomorrow.
We did come home to a “refreshed “ apartment. Since we are staying 10 days, the host sent a housekeeper around to tidy up, empty trash, change out towels. what could be better?