We took a train to Braga and back.
We wake up around 7am, having the benefit of going to back relatively early the night before. We quickly pack and head for the Campanha train station, which is about 20 minutes away from our place. We want to make the 8:20 train to Braga - it runs a bit faster than other cheap trains. After buying the tickets (3.5 euros to Braga, another 3.5 back) and figuring out how the train cards work, we get to the tracks just in time for the train to arrive. We board and spend the next 50 minutes on the train.
Upon arrival to Braga, we get to the bus stop with a bit of a delay and miss the #2 bus to Bom Jesus. The next one is in 30 minutes. We spot a pasteleria on the train station square, head for it, get some coffees for Olga, juice for me, and obligatory pasteis de nata (flaky crust, gooey custard, I like it, Olga prefers her custards less runny). After breakfast, we head back to the bus station, but the bus is late, and it is starting to approach 10am, so we head to catch a cab, and pay 7 euros to get to the top of Bom Jesus.
This is somewhat unfortunate, as we wanted to take the stairs up. After some discussion, we find the stairs, go down all the way to where they start, and then walk back up. It is not too bad - the first set of stairs involves flat stretches between the steps, while the last set - the pretty ones - well, we just scale them (-:
At the top, we go inside the church itself (it is smaller than other churches we've seen), visit a small exhibit talking about the funicular going to the top, and take a walk up, where we discover a series of trails and a park with a pond (you can rent a boat) located above Bom Jesus. We then head back to the church level, get some pasteis de nata and coffee at the cafe, spend a few minutes trying to find the funicular (it is located very close to the stairs, but at a really awkward place that we kept on missing), and take the funicular back down (it's a nice fun ride) just in time to make it to the #2 bus headed back to town.
After about a 10 minute ride, the driver helpfully tells us that we have reached the center of Braga. We get off at a boulevard and head towards the old town, taking a small detour to visit a shopping center tucked away on the street. As we exit it, the old town is in front of us. We go around the Torre de Menagem - one of Braga's castle towers left standing - unfortunately, it is closed and cannot be visited. We then hit the main tourist drag, and after a couple of blocks, find ourselves at the Se de Braga - Braga's main cathedral. We buy tickets, and sneak into the church just before it officially closes for visits.
Inside the cathedral, a small chior of young people sing some modern renditions of vaguely Christian songs (I recognize Hallelujah from Leonard Cohen's repertoir) accompanied by a guitar. I get a prime lesson of what church reverb sounds like for real. The church is preparing for some sort of ceremony - eventually it starts looking like a wedding (a second one for us today, there was also one at Bom Jesus). Olga wants to stay and watch the whole thing, I eventually convince her to let the nice people have their wedding without us. We exit the church to find the groom and the bride just about to walk into the church.
We then spend a scary 20 minutes trying to find a restaurant to sit down for dinner. We skip a couple of good candidates, then a few places we want have no table available. We circle around the old town, and eventually find a place that has tables and a menu we like. I get a legume soup, and cod served Braga-style (with lots of fried potatos). Olga gets the famous preco no prato - a beef steak served with rice, fries, salad and an egg - same dish she ordered in Fatima. We get a liter of sangria - fizzy, and with a lot of frozen fruit (the sangria is pinkish in color, lighter than the usual red sangrias). The soup is good, and so are our dishes - when they are served (the service is a bit relaxed, but not too bad). The entire lunch is our most expensive meal to date: 40.20 euros (mostly thanks to me ordering the most expenisve dish on the menu, and us ordering a pitcher of sangria).
After dinner, we head towards Roman Terms. They are located on a hill outside of the old town, once we figure out the streets, we get there promptly. We are greeted by a young man who is bored, gives us teacher discount (I do show him my Cal Poly card as a proof), shows us the video explaining how the site was discovered in 1977 as they moved to the hill to build apartment complexes, and discusses with us the history of Braga. We head to the dig itself to find a really nice Roman relic, with clear signs of the Roman way of heating and cooling. The interesting part is that the baths - just as we saw at other places (Wroxeter comes to mind) undergone renovations with four different layouts discovered by the archeologists. We follow the map to see where different rooms were.
After leaving the Terms, we decide that we should call it a day in Braga and head home. On our way we pass the city gates, and have coffee and deserts at a pasteleria right outside. With 20 minutes 'till the next train, we head to the train station, find the train on the tracks already, get in, find sits, and head home.
We arrive at Campanha right before 6pm, head home, pass by Lidl, stock up on food there - get some meatballs, get home around 7pm, relax for an hour, after which i cook us a dinner of meatballs and tortilla da batata which we bought a long time ago and just did not have the time to cook, and boiled shrimp. This completes the day.
Steps. Surprisingly, Google fit shows over 24,000.
Tomorrow. One more day of exploring Porto on foot.
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