Located in a pleasant place, where contact with the natural environment is privileged, the Shrine of Our Lady of the Abbey was built in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, in the parish of Santa Maria Bouro. The Marian shrine belongs to the baroque and rococo architecture and consists of chapels of Stations of the Cross, church, cruise, supplies and buildings to support pilgrims.

It is a devotion place and at the same time, a quiet place of rare beauty, where visitors are invited to stay and enjoy moments of rest. Around the Shrine of Our Lady of the Abbey, admire it a heavenly environment where the whisper of water and the chirping of small birds break the silence that so characterizes this space. Hiking and relaxing pathways are very appealing and activities that can promote themselves in the surrounding area.

Also of note is the Museum of the Shrine of Our Lady of the Abbey, installed in the old “barracks” of the Sanctuary. It is identified mainly by religious art, statues, tools, documentation and religious events, etc. Ethnography, folklore and crafts (flax cultivation), also contribute to their identity.

The building was built in order to serve for housing of the Dukes of Bragança and currently no longer part of the city walls, or is within any defensive structure.

The Palace of the Dukes of Braganza was built by King Afonso, 1st Duke of Braganza, a Burgundian style that reflects their architectural tastes acquired in the various trips he made in Europe.

The building has a central courtyard and has four towers, one in each of its four corners.

It was the four bodies which are contruidos around the central courtyard which the life of the palace was organized.

In the southwest body on the first floor, is the portal that serves as the entrance to the chapel, in the form of pointed archivolts, which are based on small columns.

As for coverage, its composition is wood travejamento.

The various windows, which are spread across four bodies of the Palace of the Dukes, have rectangular shape and are maineladas, with its chamfered edges.

The building is topped by a crown of battlements. The original design, the facade that is most conserved is the posterior fachado, while the remaining change much.

Inside the Palace, all the arcade is new, which makes it difficult to know-what would be your original.Não aspect is well known to those who attribute the authorship of the Dukes of Bragança Palace project.

In fact, there are documented references to the work of a master mason of French origin in the year 1460, his name Anton, who resided in the city of Guimarães.

However, there is nothing that can lead to state that this has been the author of Prince Afonso housing design.

Still, since the structure of the building is not similar to the Portuguese buildings of that time and since the person who commissioned its construction was Alfonso, the king’s illegitimate son John I of Portugal, and one of the richest Portuguese, educated and traveled this time, it is almost certain that the project has been conducted by a foreign author, probably French, as it is in France that we can find a similar buildings with this.

The Palace of the Dukes of Bragança was the initial house after the wedding with Alfonso D. Constance de Noronha, his second wife. The Palace continued to be inhabited by his descendants until, in 1576, dies Duarte, 5th Duke of Guimarães and grandson of King Manuel I.

Thus, it is from the late sixteenth century the Palace ends up abandoned and begins to degrade. Still, served as military headquarters during the nineteenth century, and only in the twentieth century came under restoration work and recreation, going to gain momentum as the official residence of the President of the Republic in the north.

Currently, the Dukes of Bragança Palace serves as Museum.

In a dominant position, overlooking the Campo(field)de São Mamede, this monument is connected to the Portuguese Province(Condado Portucalense) foundation and the struggles of independence of Portugal, being popularly referred to as the cradle of nationality.

A National Monument in 2007 was elected informally as one of the Seven Wonders of Portugal.

The castle features a plant in the approximate shape of a faceted shell. Its walls, reinforced by four towers, are torn by doors. A battlement, accessed by stairs in the towers, traverses the top of the walls, crowned by pentagonal battlements of sharp cut. On the west side, a wooden bridge connects between the battlement of the walls and the door of the keep. In the northern section of the walls are visible the ruins of the ancient fortress, probably of the fourteenth century, which is divided into two floors, with emphasis on their exterior windows and two chimneys.

The main gate to the west, is defended by two clods, with two others to defend the port of betrayal to the east.

The Tower of Homage, the center of the parade, has square plan, with few openings marking floors, internally connected by wooden staircase and stone. A broad and continuous adarve allow the movement and observation at the top of the tower, crowned by sharp pentagonal battlements.