Guimaraes Historic Centre

Guimaraes carries the founding story of Portugal, and the town has been shaped by it: the 10th-century castle on the hill, the Romanesque chapel of Sao Miguel beside it, and the Paco dos Duques de Braganca, a 15th-century ducal palace with brick chimneys and a heavily restored interior of tapestries and armour. Below them the walled core is small enough to cross in twenty minutes - Largo da Oliveira and Praca de Santiago open into each other, granite arcades on one side, houses with overhanging wooden balconies on the other. A cable car climbs to Penha, the wooded hill above town. UNESCO listed the centre in 2001 for the way medieval building traditions survived into the modern town.

What you actually see

• The castle - the 10th-century keep and curtain wall on the rock above town.
• Paco dos Duques - the ducal palace with its forest of brick chimneys.
• Largo da Oliveira - the arcaded square at the heart of the walled core.
• The Penha cable car - a ten-minute lift to the wooded hill above the roofs.

When to go

Spring and early autumn suit the granite and the hills; summer fills the squares in the evening and empties them at midday. The town works as an overnight rather than a day trip - after the coaches leave for Porto, the old squares belong to residents again. Book the ducal palace ticket ahead in August.

Honest expectations

The ducal palace is largely a 20th-century reconstruction and reads that way inside, which disappoints visitors expecting untouched medieval rooms. The castle is a shell - walls and walkways, no furnished interiors. Streets are steep granite cobble, slick in rain. The modern town around the centre is ordinary, and the walk from the station cuts through it.

Nearby

Braga is twenty minutes north, Porto under an hour southwest, and the Penha hill sits directly above town.