Bragança: the medieval citadel in the forgotten far northeast

To reach Bragança you have to really want it. The motorway runs out before you get there, the railway no longer exists, and the last kilometres are travelled on secondary roads crossing oak forests and small villages where Portuguese coexists with Mirandese, the minority language of the Terra de Miranda. Trás-os-Montes — literally "beyond the mountains" — is the most isolated and most authentic region in northern Portugal, and Bragança is its natural capital.

The citadel and the keep

Bragança's Cidadela is among the best-preserved medieval fortresses in Europe. Encircled by 15 towers linked by 13th-century walls, at its centre stands the keep, the Torre de Menagem, 33 metres tall: you climb to the top and take in the entire Terra Fria transmontana with your gaze, the pine and oak forests stretching to Spain. Inside the citadel there is also the Igreja de Santa Maria do Castelo, with a sober and powerful Romanesque façade.

Inside and outside the walls

In the old borough hugging the outer walls, the Museu do Abade de Baçal is one of Portugal's richest regional museums: sacred art, numismatics, Trás-os-Montes ethnography, and a section dedicated to local Jewish culture. Outside the walls, the modern city is animated by university students who keep it alive. The Parque Natural de Montesinho, just a few kilometres away, is home to Iberian wolves, otters, and one of the few intact Iberian steppe ecosystems still surviving in Portugal.

Gastronomy and seasons

Transmontana cuisine is among Portugal's most original: alheira de Mirandela, the bread-and-mixed-meat sausage invented by Jews to evade the Inquisition by pretending to eat pork; posta mirandesa, beef from the Miranda breed; and Trás-os-Montes wine, rustic and genuine. The best months are May–June and September: summer is hot but bearable, winter harsh and snowy.