festival

It is time for yet another party in Braga! The Festa de São João is the city’s biggest and oldest annual street party. For a week leading up to St. John’s Day (June 24th), the historical city center is subject to a brilliant array of fun that blends Catholic traditions with pre-Christian midsummer customs like…

It’s time for a Roman wedding! Again, this will be mostly pictures. I have some wrap-up thoughts at the end about Braga Romana 2026 as a whole. Here is a still of the procession across the square. The bride is in the orange veil to the left. And because it’s difficult to capture the fun…

It rained overnight and was threatening to most of the day, so we spent most of it indoors except for a visit to the soldiers’ encampment. Today’s post is pretty much just pictures. This previous one needs a bit of explanation. This statue is the square all year round, and although it looks like cheap…

Day 3 – Friday Today was HOT so we didn’t do as much. The only thing we made time for was the big parade in the evening. And that was a good choice, I now have a much better sense of how parades work here. Maybe this is how parades work everywhere, and I just…

Day 2 – Thursday We took an English-language tour in the morning, which I highly recommend. It was about 24C out, and I stupidly didn’t bring a hat or water because it’s the first really warm day in Braga this year. By 11:30am I was worried about keeling over. Memo to self: hat is mandatory….