Day 63: Guimaraes to Braga

May 3, 2023

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Guimaraes has a very nice historical centre, one we might have toured around a bit more, had we not felt so beat up getting in there. We woud like to think that we are not always grumpy, so that when something does bug us, it might be something of a real phenomenon, that others would also recognize. It was like that this morning too, as both of us noticed the constant flow of cars trundling along the cobbled streets of the old town. Cars moving like that are noisy, and they also shut down cycling on the street, or crossing, except at crosswalks.

Looking at our options for getting to Braga, we chose a route that Google had labelled not "best" but "least traffic". But to get to even that route we had to use N101, route that had given us grief yesterday. Once we were going near N101 we figured we could take advantage of the Continente supermarket that is along that way.

We spotted the Continente, and fought through the traffic to get over to it. But we must have lived in the country too long now, because we could not figure out how to get to the actual food, in the huge shipping mall that Continente seems to be the anchor for. You might think that we are exaggerating this for dramatic effect, but the track does not lie - we went to and into the Continente mall, and came out with nothing. Later, we found an Aldi, which is more our size. Grocery, not just Aldi, is seeming very cheap in Portugal. We eventually bought two pastries, a bunch of carrots, two puddings, a hummus wrap, and three huge peelable oranges for 10 euros!

It is nice, but don't try crossing to that square, and don't try cycling where they have painted a bicycle symbol on the road!

If that black car doesn't get you, it's a nice stroll down a street like this.

These wooden balconies are well known for Guimaraes.

Normally a case of fish is not "bloggable" but these sardines are randomly in the doorway of a fruit store. Dodie suggests these would be great for burying under you tomato plants, but seriously, do you stir fry these, or what?

There is the Continente. All we have to do is get through these cars in the roundabout!

OK, we made it into the shopping mall (with the bikes). Assuming we do not need the fashion items on the right, how do we find the food? We were not adult enough to find the answer, and gave up.

Almost every city you can name is nowadays surrounded by a ring of car dealerships, car related services, and things like building materials sellers. A problem comes when you do not find open space from one city to the start of the car dealership ring of the next. It seemed to us that Guimaraes/Braga was going to be like that, and we are thinking that the Portuguese northwest may be very built up, from Porto for 100 km east and north, making quiet, deserted cycle roads scarce.

I was at this point, perhaps 10 km out of Guimaraes, that Google's promise of a less trafficked route began to be fulfilled. We entered what must have been a sort of suburban area, where we much appreciated the flowers, notably roses of many colours growing strongly all over the place. There we also lots of a form of brassica that we have seen over all of the north, but which puzzles us. The plants grow tall, and have no recognizable broccoli or cauliflower components. Do the people grow these just for the green leaves?

The unknown brassicas can grow really tall, and set standard looking brassica seed, like in this shot.

Dodie noticed these flowers. Google has no idea what they are.

Our route, as one would hope, became more rural as we cycled away from Guimaraes. Now instead of car dealerships we could look at pleasant valleys. The road, as you see in the photo below, remains tricky. A driver ripping around that corner would encounter me, stopped and looking at the valley.

Eventually we did shift onto a true small road, and suddenly life was wonderful again. We began to call the valley the road took us to the "Valley That Time Forgot", because gardeners and even cows could walk without being bullied by cars.

I had hoped this shot would show more of the lady's hoe. It is typical for this region, and is deeper and sharper than the ones we have at home.

There were in fact six cows walking to their field. They were beautiful and healthy looking.

Toward the end of the Valley we came to a lunch stop that was really ideal. The running water was ice cold, good for splashing on the face, in the about 30 degree temperature, and the stone table was really comfortable. There was also a de facto comfort station between the two concrete walls.

We continued on the rather famous, very bumpy, Portuguese cobble road. But we preferred this road to one with a lot of traffic.

We technically arrived at Braga, but as you see it was still pleasant countryside.

In fact, while technically into Braga we even got a stretch of dirt road. The dirt was a relief - lots less bumpy than cobbles.

The dirt finally popped us out into the real Braga periphery, where we had McDonald's and another huge Continente. But it was not at all bad, and Dodie soon had us in the historic centre, and at our modest but very comfortable hotel, the Dona Sofia. We left our bike near reception, and set off for a look at the nearby Cathedral.

We liked the arrangement with the Cathedral, which overlooked a walking street. One could peacefully visit the Cathedral and stroll in the surrounding neighbourhood.

The cathedral is not a giant gothic structure, but it does have some really nice stuff inside.

Here is St. Iago, our favourite guy. He is always shown with a walking stick, and a Coquille St Jacques on his hat.

A typical chapel in the Cathedral has overwhelming gold stuff.

The big wow item is the organ, and the painted wooden roof overhead. It's hard to orient your self to this photo, because all the action was truly directly overhead. Everything about this bit was ornate.

Here is part of the painted wooden roof. It's also hard to get oriented to.

This is the carved wooden choir. If you look for a bit you'll realize that one could step up where the red is, move along and sit at one of the positions.

The main altar. This is now one of many we have seen, where the centre of attention is not a statue but rather a series of stacked boxes.

This image of St. Martin shows the amount of gold paint in use for the chapels.

Surprisingly for such a conservative and ornate interior, the stained glass is modernistic.

When we left the Cathedral it had started to rain, preventing further photos and encouraging us to quit and go back to the hotel. I did take out the camera to note these two micro cars. Since the SMART came to North America, a micro car spotted is not longer really blog worthy. But these two are not SMARTs, so that is something. The White one is a Toyota IQ, while the black one is labelled CDI.

I looked up the IQ anyway, and found that it has long ago been discontinued. We are so far behind on this stuff in Canada that environmental innovations come and go before we are even aware of them!

Today's ride: 27 km (17 miles)
Total: 2,637 km (1,638 miles)

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Scott AndersonWhat ever else you do on this tour, don’t leave Braga without visiting Bom Jesus do Monte: https://www.cycleblaze.com/journals/iberia2019/in-braga-a-walk-to-bom-jesus-do-monte/
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1 year ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Scott AndersonUnfortunately it is in the opposite direction to where we are headed, and the forecast tomorrow is for rain. Luckily, we already saw a similar staircase shrine in Lamego, and climbed it, although not on our knees.
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1 year ago