Braga

Braga is one of Portugal's oldest cities and the religious capital of the country, home to the country's oldest cathedral and a concentration of Baroque churches and episcopal palaces in the compact city centre. The pilgrim stairway of Bom Jesus do Monte rises through a succession of fountains, chapels, and allegorical statues on a forested hill above the city — an 18th-century theatrical landscape of exceptional quality. The city also has a lively university population that sustains a contemporary cultural scene.