4 Best Sights in Amarante, Northern Portugal

The former monastery cloisters now house this municipal museum and its excellent collection of modern Portuguese art, including important works by locally born modernist painter Souza-Cardoso. He pursued variations of fauvism, cubism, futurism, and other avant-garde tendencies, in 1906 sharing an apartment with fellow painter Amedeo Modigliani in Paris. He returned to Portugal in 1914 and died four years later at the age of 31. The museum also has some interesting archaeological pieces---the star attractions are the diabos (devils), a pair of 19th-century carved wooden figures connected with ancient fertility rites. They were venerated on St. Bartholomew's Day (August 24), when the devil was thought to run loose. In 1870, the Archbishop of Braga ordered them burned because of their pagan function. The São Gonçalo friars didn't go that far, but they did emasculate the male diabo.

Three river valleys to the west and south of Amarante---the Sousa, the lower Tâmega, and part of the Douro---prospered around the time that Portugal became an independent kingdom, but fell behind as it expanded southwards, meaning that they missed out on new artistic developments such as the Gothic style. Today, the area's dozens of surviving 12th-century churches and other religious buildings are the country's prime showcase of Romanesque architecture. Several towns banded together to create the Rota do Românico (Romanesque Route), coordinated since 2018 from this Interpretation Center in Lousada, a 20-minute drive from Amarante. It has excellent maps, leaflets, and books, as well as stimulating interactive displays. Admission is free, as it is to all the route's monuments, but visits to the latter must be scheduled by email to  [email protected] a couple days in advance (to ensure a designated local is on hand to let you in).

This imposing church of the former Convento de São Gonçalo, built and rebuilt between the 16th and 20th centuries, sits on the north side of the Rio Tâmega, overlooking the imposing 18th-century bridge of the same name. The effigy of its patron saint, just the altar, is reputed to guarantee marriage to anyone who touches it. His features have almost been worn away over the years as desperate suitors try and, perhaps, try again. 

This vinho verde estate at Penafiel, halfway between Porto and Amarante, has been in the Guedes family since at least the 16th century. Visitors can book a tasting (from €8 for three wines) or for a few more euros combine it with a tour that takes in the old cellar with its 300 barrels, and the famous Romantic garden, with its lovely plants and centuries-old trees. Aveleda is known for its fine aguardentes, and connoisseurs can book a private tour and tasting of five such brandies, aged up to 30 years.