"Well... it's raining"

Last week, since my wife had some days off for the Holy Week, I decided to take some of my holiday days too, and we went for a trip to Portugal in our van. We live in Galicia, Spain, so it's not much of a long trip, but we like to visit every now and then.

Continuing with our recent tradition of visiting monasteries and churches (check the 'churches' tag if you want to read about another recent trip), our plans included visiting the Sanctuary of Bom Jesus do Monte... and we had not much more pre-planned, to be honest.

### Ponte de Lima

We set off on Sunday late-afternoon, and decided that stopping in Ponte de Lima for the night would be a good idea. We found a parking lot near the river, crossed the roman bridge and found a place to have dinner. The next day we walked around the Parque Tematico do Arnado, crossed the river again and did a bit of walking around. By now, well... it was raining.

### Bom Jesus and Sameiro

We continued our trip to Braga, expecting to sleep somewhere in the city and visit Bom Jesus the next day, but we decided to skip Braga and go straight to the Sanctuary. We parked the van at the parking lot, had a coffee in the little kiosk there, and decided that it could be a good idea to try and climb all the stairs. "Well... it's raining", we said to each other as we went up the stairs.

Very nice place. The, I think, 20 chapels scattered on the way to the Basilica on top are definitely something to see. So is the Basilica. When we arrived at the top, you guessed, it was still raining, just a bit harder. We took the Elevador on our way down, and then we saw that not further than 10 minutes by car from there, there was another Sanctuary: Santuário de Nossa Senhora da Conceição do Sameiro.

Seeing that the rain didn't seem to want to stop, and we were not planning to go to sleep by mid-afternoon, but walking around in the rain was not a great prospect either, we hopped in the van and went to Sameiro.

We arrived as a thick fog engulfed the whole area. This took a bit away from the experience, but seeing the sanctuary emerge from the fog as we were walking closer was truly a magnificent experience as well. I'm not sure why this sanctuary is not as well known as the Bom Jesus (everyone where we live knows of Bom Jesus, but literally nobody has heard of Sameiro), but this church is certainly breathtaking. We entered by a side door (by the south, as we braved the fog and cold walking from the parking lot), and were stunned by the marble columns and the altar as we walked toward the main nave pointing west.

We were practically the only two people there. There was a lady who was already walking out, and later a man appeared from behind some door and walked outside as well. That's it, we got to enjoy the Basilica (I think it's technically a basilica, but don't quote me on that) in peace and silence.

I got a [fantastic book](https://santuariodosameiro.pt/loja/produto/livros/musicas/seminario-de-braga-viveiro-de-musicos/) here, that they were selling on the honor system, about "450 years of music composers from the Braga Seminar". Hundreds of pages with the biographies of composers and sheet music (for organ and voice, I guess. I'm barely a motivated amateur when it comes to music) for their sacred music. This really made me happy :).

### Barcelos

From there, we braved the cold and fog back to the van (my genius ass was wearing shorts under my poncho during all this...) and drove to Barcelos (we did pause briefly to see another church on the drive down the hills, Santuário de Santa Maria Madalena de Falperra, but it was closed). "Well... it's raining"

We walked around the old town of Barcelos the next morning, visiting its Ponte sobre o Cávado, the Museu Arqueológico / Paço dos Duques de Bragança, and generally enjoying the town as much as the rain allowed us to. "Well... It's raining, let's go somewhere for a coffe".

After this amount of rain, we were frankly getting bored of it. We still got to see a lot of very nice places, but doing it with wet feet and a plastic poncho on your back can get old pretty quickly. We didn't say it loud yet, but I'm pretty sure we both were thinking of cutting the trip short and start heading back north.

### Vila Nova de Cerveira

The next stop was Vila Praia da Âncora, where we enjoyed the sun for the first time while having a coffee near the sea. We were only passing by on the way to Vila nova de Cerveira, where they have a nice RV area we had stopped several times before. When we arrived at Vila Nova de Cerveira, "Well, it's raining", so we went for a walk looking for a place to have dinner, stopping for a couple beers before that. We felt we deserved it :)

We discovered there's now an indian restaurant in this town, and turns out their food is delicious. If you are around the area, give Shagun a try.

Next day, we walked to the Forte de São Francisco de Lovelhe (where, once again, we were alone to enjoy it at our leisure), and later we went inside the Castelo de Vila Nova de Cerveira (which, oddly enough, we had never entered in any of our previous visits). Then we decided that spending a night at a campground for a warm shower was a good idea, and we drove back to Caminha. We got a bit more rain while at the campground, but not too much.

### Caminha, Valença and back to Galicia

And finally, around that night or the next day perhaps, we finally said it out loud: "You know, if we decided to head home, I'd be already pretty satisfied with this trip. I don't think we need to do more walking in the rain just to say we did". So, we headed to Galicia, making a quick stop at Valença do Minho to grab some pasteis de nata and have a coffe at the Fortaleza de Valença before driving back home on Thursday night.

So, yeah, it's not like we missed out on doing any of the things we wanted to do because of the rain; we still visited a bunch of nice places. We just happened to have to do it in the rain. And, well, it can get old after a while.

Still, nice trip. Our 20-year-old van (we call him Sven, 'cos it's a Van. Yeah... ) was a great purchase, and truly gives us an impressive amount of freedom to go on these not-so-well-planned-at-all trips. I only wish we had the time to do it more often...

Tags: van, churches, trips, portugal, rain