Festivals:
“Local Festivities” (fiestas): take place throughout the year, the main ones being:
Nossa Senhora das Graças Feast (August 12-22) when Bragança sponsors major cultural and musical events.
Feira das Cantarinhas (May 2-4), craft fair dedicated to the Cantarinhas, which was formerly used to store gifts that were offered to the bride on her wedding day.
Ash Wednesday (February or early March).
Bragança
This remote capital of Trás-os-Montes was the origin of the last Portuguese Royal Family, ie, its original house, which ruled from 1640 until the fall of the monarchy in 1910. The city still reminds us of its royal past and strategic with its Citadel, medieval walls that surround its medieval city, castle and fortress.
Stone Age Paleolithic Art – Vale do Côa: a day trip to one of the most open-air Paleolithic art places in Europe. The site was discovered during excavation for the construction of a dam in 1992 and was made a UNESCO Heritage Site in 1995, thus saving it from being submerged in more than 90 meters of water.
Local village, “vernacular” architecture: The village of Montesinho was built from the stones found on its land, giving rise to shale and granite houses, where the ground floor was normally occupied with cattle and the upper floors above were shared by the people.
Some agricultural traditions of hundreds of years are still shared in the local fields today, allowing us to see in detail the techniques of our ancestors: people cultivate the fields by hand or using cattle to work the land.
The Spanish glacial lake: Lake Sanabria, right near the border – 50 minutes drive from the village of Montesinho is one of the largest glacial lakes in Spain, which offers Camping Parks and river beaches without number.
The local gastronomy and its elaboration is a source of great pride for the local people, they still raise pigs and make the slaughter in December to make chorizos with herbs, wine and sometimes meatballs. September brings the harvest, the harvest of the grapes and later after pressing them into brandy which is produced in giant copper jugs, leaving the village streets with its intoxicating aroma.