Braga: from the Sé to the Roman fountain: a self-guided walk

By Alleytale

A stroll through the old centre of Braga, from a Baroque palace to a Roman spring

You walk east from an old city gate to the cathedral, across the square called the Arcada and on to a Roman fountain, reading Braga's story in its buildings, from a Roman water cult to an 18th-century archbishop's arch.

Coming soonApp StoreComing soonGoogle Play

The stops

1. 1Palácio dos Biscainhos

   Dr. Constantino Ribeiro do Lago ordered this residence built, and his son Diogo de Sousa da Silva concluded the work in 1699. It was likely built by Basque artisans from Biscay. The building was acquired in 1963 to become a museum, which opened on 11 February 1978, and its garden is divided into three terraces with five water-spring bowls in the Rocaille style.

   

2. 2Arco da Porta Nova

   This was one of the gates in Braga's city walls, opened in 1512 under Archbishop Diogo de Sousa. Its present look dates from the early 1770s, when Archbishop Gaspar de Bragança had it redone to a design by the Braga architect André Soares. A medieval tower from the Fernandine wall stands beside it, almost hidden by the houses around it.

   

3. 3Sé de Braga

   Bishop Pedro began the cathedral after the bishopric was restored around 1071, and he dedicated it to the Virgin Mary on 28 August 1089. Count Henry and Countess Theresa were buried where the Chapel of the Kings now stands. The tomb of Archbishop Gonçalo Pereira in the Chapel of Glory is guarded by six stone lions, and the main chapel was rebuilt in the Manueline style in 1509.

   

4. 4Jardim de Santa Bárbara

   This garden lies alongside the eastern wing of the Archbishop's Palace and was landscaped in 1955. Geometric designs are cut from beds of boxwood and decorated with cedar topiaries, and a statue of Saint Barbara, who gives the garden its name, stands on a fountain in the middle. On the northern patio you can see the broken ruins of an arcade from the medieval palace.

   

5. 5Arcada, Praça da República

   This square is popularly called just the Arcada, after an arcade built in 1715 by D. Rodrigo de Moura Teles on the site of an older one from the time of Archbishop Diogo de Sousa. It was the Largo da Lapa from 1761 to 1904 and took its present name in 1910, after the Republic. Two century-old cafés under the arcade, Café Vianna and Astória, are described as emblematic of the city.

   

6. 6Casa dos Crivos

   Probably built in the 17th century outside Braga's old walls, this house has a wood-lattice façade covering its second and third floors, one of the few examples from that period. In 17th-century Braga the lattice served to safeguard privacy in a religiously conservative town. The Municipal Council bought the house in 1980 to install a museum, and Prime Minister Mário Soares inaugurated the restored building in 1984.

   

7. 7Fonte do Ídolo

   This Roman fountain, cut into a granite rock, probably dates from the 1st century and the time of Emperor Augustus, and it lies outside the former urban perimeter of Bracara Augusta. A carved figure in a toga stands beside inscriptions that name Celicus Fronto as its maker and the god Tongoenabiagus. A modernist pavilion over the fountain, inaugurated in 2006, serves as an interpretive centre.

   

Hear the full story as you walk, or create your own walk, in the Alleytale app.