The male Benedictine Monastery, which includes the gilt, national baroque style, is classified as a Public Interest. Part of the monastery (monastic and fifth dependencies fence) belong to private persons, known for its production of white wine.

Being one of the most beautiful jewels of baroque architecture of the Braga Municipality, St. Andrew Monastery Rendufe provides, however, a journey through the various architectural styles, where we can find the energy and the Baroque movement, on the one hand, and sobriety the neoclassical on the other.

Location: Pitões parish of Junia, Montalegre municipality.

Access: Anjo – Encruzilhada – Mosteiro de Santa Maria de Pitões das Júnias – Levada de água – Miradouro da Cascata – Pitões das Júnias – Anjo.

Point of departure and arrival, Anjo.
Length: 3.5 km.
Duration: about 1h: 30min.
Difficulty: medium.

More information about the Trail: Leaflet in English - http://www.icnf.pt/portal/turnatur/resource/docs-ap/pnpg/leaflet/pitoes-ing

The Monastery of Santa Maria of Junia located around Pitões of Junia, in the parish of the same name, Montalegre municipality, Vila Real District, Portugal.

This convent dates back to an ancient pre-Romanesque hermitage, founded in the ninth century, which it followed the insulation criteria. You are in a narrow valley, inaccessible and far from roads and inhabited places, inscribed in a grand landscape background.

The current monastery and its temple were built during the first half of the twelfth century, even before the founding of the nation. It was then occupied monks of the Order of Saint Benedict. In the mid-thirteenth century, the monastery started to follow the rule of the Cistercian Order, been added to Oseira Abbey in Galicia. Over the centuries, this monastery was enriched with obtaining land in the Barroso region and Galicia. At the beginning of the fourteenth century, met maintenance and improvement works which highlights the construction of the cloister and the expansion of the chancel.

In the early modern period works were carried out lifting some dependencies of the convent and chapel of the temple, however destroyed by siltation caused by flowing brook at the head of it. In the first half of the eighteenth century, the church was restored at the level of the timber and lajeamento and redecorated with gilded altarpieces. From the middle of this century, however, began to fall into decay and eventually lost monks and income. With the extinction of the male religious orders (1834) his last monk began to play the Pitões pastor function. In the second half of the nineteenth century, a devastating fire led to ruin many of the convent buildings.

Given its geographic location, walks became always obligatory passage point for pilgrims to Santiago de Compostela, here crossed two main routes or the pilgrim take the path of the Interior or the Northwest Path or take the Seaway. The proximity on the Minho River as an alternative allows the passage to Galicia (Spain).

The Camino de Santiago, also known by the English names Way of St. James, St. James’s Way, St. James’s Path, St. James’s Trail, Route of Santiago de Compostela, and Road to Santiago, is the name of any of the pilgrimage routes (most commonly the Camino Francés or French route) to the shrine of the apostle St. James the Great in the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia in northwestern Spain, where tradition has it that the remains of the saint are buried. Many take up this route as a form of spiritual path or retreat, for their spiritual growth.