We spent the weekend in the most northern part of Portugal in Lindoso, and even crossed the border into Spain at one point. What an incredible weekend it was!
It started off with finishing up in Coimbra by checking out one of the oldest science museums in the world at the university, stopping by for some super delicious pastries, because when in Portugal, that's practically 90% of your fuel.
Once we hit the road and were driving North, we obviously HAD to stop in Braga.
It's practically one of the oldest and most religious places and home to the archbishop. We made our way to the old town centre, grabbed some lunch on a patio where we, of course, ordered the traditional Braga style cod dish with caramalized onions on crispy chips with olives and cauliflower. Tasted pretty damn good and served with traditional Vino Verde - a young local white wine with a bit of spritzer to it.
We also very much enjoyed these signs especially with my current status and didn't clue in that it meant "Daily special".
We wandered the city square for a bit.
Braga is also home to a pretty sweet pilgrimage site, Bom Jesus do Monte. Do Justin and I giggle everytime we mention Bom Jesus? Yes, yes we do.
It's one of the most noted sanctuaries in Portugal and is inscribed as a UNESCO heritage site. Pictures do not do its magnificance justice. For someone who was over churches at this point in the trip, we were completely enamoured and felt like we walked into a magical wonderland. The cherry on top was riding the oldest functioning funicular in the world to the top of this insane hill because when we drove to the infamous stairs.... we LOLed, got back in the car, and drove to the entrance of the funicular
We got our fill after a few flights of stairs and definitely decided to abort and make our way into the mountains before dark.
We checked in to our airbnb in the Geres National Park. What a charming accommodation, completely blew our minds, especially considering we were in the middle of nowhere! It was so isolated with just a handful of houses and the closest grocery store 15km on the other side of the border, in Spain. Justin got out to take a few shots after dark after which we called it a night. I really don't know why this blog is compressing the photos so terribly even when on max quality setting, but the sky is unreal and Justin's photo below is actually absolutely stunning with the sky completely lit up by stars.
