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Santuário de Nossa Senhora dos Remédios
On the site where the main chapel of Our Lady of Remedies was erected, there was a small hermitage, built by order of Bishop D. Durando in 1361, dedicated to Saint Stephen. In 1568, the Bishop of Lamego, D. Manuel de Noronha, authorized the demolition of the old hermitage and, on the site where the Courtyard of the Kings is currently located, ordered another one to be built under the invocation of Our Lady of Remedies. This chapel was also eventually demolished to build the current Sanctuary, whose first stone was laid in 1750, on the initiative of Canon José Pinto Teixeira. The Sanctuary building is a Baroque-style construction entirely made of granite, captivating with the elegance of its style, imposed by the creativity of the project’s author, believed to have been Nicolau Nasoni. The gilded woodwork is from the 18th century. The retable of the main chapel is a standout with its framing, forming an original piece within Portuguese carvings. At its center is the image of Our Lady of Remedies. Also noteworthy are the side altars of St. Joachim and St. Anne. Inside the temple, you can also admire beautiful tile panels, as well as interesting stained-glass windows that enrich the walls of the main body and the chancel. The frontispiece of the Sanctuary is the most admirable part of the entire building, fascinating all who stop to admire the brilliance and creative genius evident there. All the elegantly refined granite ornaments are magnificent. In the churchyard, on the south side, there is a harmonious fountain, entirely sculpted in regional granite, designed by Nicolau Nasoni and dated 1738. (see Fountains). Raised on the landing where the last steps of the staircase end, in the churchyard in front of the temple, you can see the monolithic cross with very fine ornaments. The author of the book "History of the Cult of Our Lady of Remedies in Lamego," Canon José Marrana—an essential and indispensable work for anyone who wants to better know the Sanctuary, Staircase, and Remedies Park—considers this piece "the wonderful crown of the entire staircase work, which stands out and dominates by the delicacy of its lines and its sculptural design." The two towers—with a project by the architect Augusto de Matos Cid—were started much later. The one on the south side began construction in 1880, with the tower on the north side only being completed in 1905. The main staircase began in 1777, but the works were not finished until the 20th century. The most magnificent part of the staircase is undoubtedly the "Courtyard of the Kings"—an admirable architectural work, centered on the Fountain of the Giants, from which a splendid obelisk rises, about 15 meters high. This courtyard is surrounded by several statues representing the last 18 names of the house of David. Also notable are the two porticos that provide side access to this large square. (see Artistic Treasures). Also worth mentioning is the Courtyard of Our Lady of Lourdes or of Jesus, Mary, Joseph, which contains a chapel that its founder dedicated to the Holy Family. Later, the Brotherhood had the image of Our Lady of Lourdes placed there. Above the door of the beautiful chapel is the coat of arms of Bishop D. Manuel de Vasconcelos Pereira, its builder. In front of this chapel is the Mermaid Fountain, whose name comes from the fact that it is adorned with a sculpture of a triton riding a dolphin—a figure that to the average visitor resembles a mermaid. Also on the staircase is the monumental Fountain of the Pelican, made of carved granite. The sculpture of the pelican in this fountain is particularly interesting (see Fountains). The afforestation of the park, the grotto, as well as the lake and bridge, were commissioned by the Brotherhood from the Horticultural Company of Porto in 1898. The grotto at the back was built in 1910 by an artist from Arneirós. The park, crisscrossed by several paths and with various nooks with picnic tables, has a wide variety of tree species, such as: yews, cypresses, Judas trees, acacias, linden trees, poplars, beeches, oaks, eucalyptus, elms, strawberry trees, chestnut trees, and many others.
Sé de Lamego
English Translation In the 12th century, after the restoration of the diocese of Lamego, the construction of a larger temple began. Its location was established in the Rossio de Lamego, in the lower part of the future city, and construction began in the year 1159. Consecrated in 1175 to Santa Maria and S. Sebastião, the probable conclusion of the Cathedral would only happen in 1191. However, the various ages of History were responsible for significantly altering its original Romanesque profile. The Cathedral opens onto a wide paved churchyard, a work from the 18th century, with the facade marked by the robust tower remodeled in the 1700s. The main facade of the temple was rebuilt during the reign of D. Manuel I, combining the forms of flamboyant Gothic and the timid emergence of some forms of the Renaissance. Indeed, this renovation of the episcopal cathedral began in the 15th century and continued through the next. The facade’s construction campaign took place between 1508 and 1515, according to the plans of the architect João Lopes. On the ground floor, three pointed arch portals open, with the central one being larger, consisting of several archivolts resting on colonnettes, decorated with small sculptures of plant and zoomorphic motifs. Above these, Gothic windows open, with the central one of monumental dimensions and divided by curved stone frames. The three sections of the facade are divided by four buttresses and topped by pinnacles with crockets. Of the various dependencies that extend north of the main facade, the former Paço dos Bispos is notable, an 18th-century Baroque building that has been occupied since 1917 by the Lamego Museum, where some of the best works of art from the Cathedral and other religious houses in the city are kept. The interior of the cathedral is divided into three naves separated into three sections and covered by groin vaults, resting on round arches and thick pillars. The ceilings were painted in the first half of the 18th century by the Italian painter-architect Nicolau Nasoni, revealing perspectival compositions of triumphant Baroque, with an architectural theme framing biblical episodes. In the side naves, various and sumptuous Baroque altars open. Of large dimensions, the main chapel was remodeled in the 18th century, with an altarpiece from the late 1700s combining marble and gilded woodcarving, as well as a neoclassical choir stall with a high backrest. The windows, doors, arches, and its two organs are decorated by showy gilded woodcarving structures. The side chapels are modeled by superb Baroque altarpiece carvings, by João Garcia Lopes and made in 1751. The main altar of the Blessed Sacrament has a laborious silver frontal, the work of a goldsmith from Porto and dated to the third quarter of the 18th century. In the high choir, you can admire a beautiful choir stall with paintings, a graceful work of 18th-century Baroque. The illuminated sacristy contains a scenic Calvary with rocaille woodcarving, the work of a regional workshop and dated 1757. The balanced cathedral cloister is a 16th-century undertaking, divided into two floors, the first formed by round arches and the upper one consisting of a gallery of simple columns supporting a porch. On the lower floor of the cloister, there are two magnificent chapels. The one dedicated to Santo António is covered by a gilded and polychrome carved altar, housing sacred 17th-century images. The Chapel of São Nicolau, completed in 1563, has part of the walls lined with 18th-century tiles alluding to the life of the saint, which are the work of a workshop in the capital. It also has a harmonious and lively 18th-century carved altarpiece. In this 16th-century chapel, D. Manuel de Noronha, one of the most prominent bishops of the diocese of Lamego, is buried.
Lamego Museum
Located in the city’s historic center, the Lamego Museum was founded in 1917 in an 18th-century building that was once the Episcopal Palace. It belongs to a select group of centenary museums, whose creation reflects the effects of the application of the Law of Separation of the State from the Churches (1911), which followed the establishment of the Republic. With a truly eclectic collection, it holds collections of painting, tapestry, furniture, silverware, vestments, and means of transport, which were part of the old palace’s contents, complemented later by a set of chapels covered in gilded woodcarving, archaeological artifacts, ceramics, engravings, drawings, and photographs. The core of the Flemish tapestry, woven in Brussels in the first half of the 16th century, the panels that Vasco Fernandes (Grão Vasco) painted for the Lamego cathedral at the same time, the 17th-century tile panels, and a medieval tomb chest, all classified as "national treasures," are part of the most significant collection, which is chronologically more comprehensive, with examples dating from the 1st to the 20th centuries. Diverse and plural, the collection allows for a journey of discovery of the evolution of the city of Lamego and the men and women who inhabited it throughout the centuries.
Teatro Ribeiro Conceição
Dating back to 1727, this theater was initially built to be the Misericórdia Hospital of Lamego, which operated here until 1892. Four years later, the old hospital became the new Regiment Barracks. However, on July 31, 1897, a serious fire reduced this building to rubble. In 1924, Commander José Ribeiro Conceição bought the ruined building at a public auction for ten thousand and one escudos (forty-nine euros and eighty-eight cents) and transformed it into an important and prestigious concert hall that would be a reference in the cultural life of the country’s interior for several decades. With great pomp and circumstance, the theater was inaugurated on February 2, 1929, maintaining its cultural activity until 1987, the year it was already in an advanced state of degradation. Finally, the Municipality of Lamego decides to proceed with the acquisition of this 18th-century monument, and in 1993, recovery and consolidation works were carried out on the building. At the end of 2005, rehabilitation works were carried out, and on February 23, 2008, the most beautiful concert hall in the Douro region was reopened: the Ribeiro Conceição Theater.
Igreja de São Francisco
The existing church is what remains of the convent that was erected in 1599. It underwent alterations in the 17th century, and a military hospital would later occupy part of the temple. After a fire on Almacave street, the entrance underwent significant changes in 1916. Inside the Church, the image of Our Lady (16th century), sculpted in wood, stands out, with special emphasis on the main altar’s painting, a magnificent 17th-century work alluding to the death of St. Francis. In the sacristy, the showy vestment cabinet with paintings alluding to the life of St. Francis is worth admiring, as well as the ceiling painting. In the Chapel of Our Lady of Sorrows, you can admire a beautiful iron gate dated 1803, as well as tile panels alluding to the passion of Christ.
Igreja de Santa Maria de Almacave
Built near an Arab necropolis (macab – from which the name Almacave derives), this religious temple is a Romanesque construction (12th century) that was profoundly altered, especially in the 17th century, as evidenced by the tile panels with geometric and plant motifs, the pulpit, and the gilded woodcarving. From the primitive Romanesque style, the pointed arch portal with four archivolts stands out, with the most extensive one bordered by a checkered band. In the 18th century, the altars were enriched with tiles and gilded woodcarvings. Also noteworthy, in its interior—a single nave without a transept and with a chancel—are the tiles on the walls and choir, the pulpit built in 1600, and the sculptures of St. Joseph and St. Anthony, in 18th-century upholstered wood. History says that the first Cortes (parliamentary assembly) of the Kingdom of Portugal were held at the Church of Santa Maria de Almacave in the year 1143. Even today, the evocation of this assembly, in which D. Afonso Henriques, the first King of Portugal, was acclaimed and invested, is one of the symbols of Lamego’s historical past.
Câmara Municipal de Lamego
The Lamego City Council is the main executive body of the municipality, responsible for the administrative, cultural, and urban management of the city. The building houses the municipal services and is a reference point in the political and social life of the community.
Biblioteca Municipal de Lamego
The history of Libraries intersects with the path of Humanity itself. Although their genesis dates back to Ancient Civilizations (Babylon, Greece and Ancient Rome, Pergamum, or Alexandria), walking hand in hand with the discovery of writing, it was with the advent of the Middle Ages that the cult of books developed in convents and monasteries, giving rise to the first great libraries of our historical-cultural journey. In our country, it was in the 18th century that Public Libraries began to take their first steps, under the aegis of the Enlightenment and liberal ideals, then fueled by the extinction of religious orders, with their creation and expansion accelerating in the second half of the 19th century, being legally instituted in 1852, at the initiative of municipal councils. With a humanist and philanthropic stance, typical of a liberal bourgeoisie, libraries thus came to be seen as a possibility for the popular classes to assert themselves and access the culture of the privileged classes, gaining access to a right that, until then, had been denied to them because it belonged to a dominant elite. And if the first half of the 20th century gave Popular Libraries an essential function of "public reading and popular general culture," during the second half, it was the itinerant and fixed libraries of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation that ensured the public reading service in Portugal, against the silence of the Estado Novo (New State), with the network of Public Libraries starting in the 1980s with the construction of new libraries in practically all municipalities of this country, promising a new paradigm in the access to Knowledge, Information, Leisure, and Culture.
Mercado Municipal de Lamego
The Lamego Municipal Market began operating on July 25, 1981. Its main objective was to supply the county seat with fresh products, given the difficulty at the time of serving the urban population with this type of product. It consists of three floors, with floors one and two used for the Market’s operation and floor three, until recently, occupied by the Hotel School, although its future use has not yet been defined. The opening hours for the public, from Monday to Saturday, are from 7:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. The busiest day for the market is Thursday, which coincides with the weekly fair. On this day, the Market exceptionally receives numerous producers who find a place there to sell their horticultural and fruit products. Considering that no requalification works have been carried out in that space for more than 25 years, the Lamego City Council will carry out an intervention for the revitalization and dynamization of the Lamego Municipal Market, in order to, on the one hand, comply with legal food safety requirements, and on the other hand, increase the attraction capacity of this space. The physical rehabilitation of the Municipal Market will be complemented with the training and modernization of commercial operators, regarding product display, customer service, sales techniques, conservation and maintenance of the guarantee of products sold, and the offer of value-added services – home deliveries, ATM payments, etc. Dissemination and promotion actions will also be developed, in order to lead the population to create the habit of going to the Municipal Market – to buy quality food products (fresh fruits and vegetables, fish and meat, flowers, bread, cheeses, sausages, sweets), particularly those of a traditional and regional nature.
Rua da Olaria
Rua da Olaria (Pottery Street), in Lamego, owes its name to the artisanal activity that once existed there, linked to the working of clay and the production of pottery pieces. This past gives the street a strong connection to local traditions and the community life of yesteryear. Currently, Rua da Olaria preserves its typical atmosphere, maintaining the charm of a space that evokes the city’s collective memory. It is a place where Lamego’s artisanal history is reflected in its very urban identity, inviting a careful look at the intangible heritage that marked generations.
Rua Porta do Sol
Rua Porta do Sol, in Lamego, is one of the city’s most emblematic streets, located in an old urban area that reveals the historical and cultural heritage of the municipality. Its name evokes a symbolic connection to light and the horizon, referring to the importance of the space in urban daily life. Along the street, you will find traditional architectural buildings that bear witness to the evolution of the urban fabric over the centuries. Walking along Rua Porta do Sol is also walking through a part of Lamego’s identity, where history and contemporary life harmoniously intersect.
