Saturday, May 25,2024 – Day trip to Braga

Braga is a 30 minute bus ride from Barcelos. Braga is known as the Rome of Portugal and a must see destination when you are traveling in Portugal. So I decided to take a day off from the Camino and visit Braga.

When I booked my bus tickets I bought tickets for the express bus. The express bus takes 30 minutes to travel between the two cities and the local bus takes 60 minutes. What I didn’t realize is that the bus stop for the local bus is a block away from my hotel. But the bus station for the express bus is quite a schlep. It was a good thing that I left my hotel early as it took me 30 minutes to walk to the express bus station in Barcelos and I got there with only a few minutes to spare.

I booked a walking tour of Braga that was scheduled to begin at 10:15 AM. I got off the bus a little before 9:00, walked a block and ran right into a crowd of people going into a church. I followed them in and attended the 9:00 AM mass.

I was at the meeting place for the walking tour at 10:00 AM for our 10:15 AM walking tour. We were told to show up 15 minutes before the start time for the tour. The tour guide, Joseph, finally showed up at 10:15 and I was the only one who signed up for the tour. He gave me a 15 minute introduction to Braga and when he was done two British couples asked if they could join the tour. This necessitated a repeat of Joseph’s introduction to Braga speech.

Braga is called the Rome of Portugal not because it looks anything like Rome, but because the Romans were instrumental, along with the Braga archbishops, in founding and developing Braga as an important city in the region. Every year Braga holds a weekend festival to celebrate its Roman heritage. This weekend was the Braga Roman Festival.

The Braga Roman festival is kinda like a Renaissance Fair, entertaining but cheesy.

The first stop on the tour was Saint Barbara’s Garden.

There are blooming flowers in this garden all year.

The next stop on the tour was the banana bar and liquor store.

You don’t see many bars or liquor stores with bananas in the window.

A number of years ago the owner of this place held a Christmas Eve party for his friends and the adjoining business owners. He was serving a Moscatel wine and people complained that it was too sweet.

The owner didn’t have anything in his store to cut the wine with but for some reason he did have a bunch of bananas. His guests peeled the bananas and dunked the bananas in their glasses of Moscatel and ate the bananas. That was such a big hit that in the ensuing years as many as 10,000 people show up in the street outside this liquor store on Christmas Eve with their glasses of Moscatel and bananas. They have a back room bar where you can get a glass of Moscatel and a banana.

The next stop on the tour was the Cathedral.