Porto & the North

Before Rome, the north was the land of the Castro culture, whose fortified hill villages of round stone houses survive at sites such as Citânia de Briteiros near Guimarães. The Romans founded Bracara Augusta, today's Braga, as a regional capital, and after the empire fell Braga became the seat of the Germanic Suebi kingdom and an early centre of Iberian Christianity. The name of the whole country grew from here: Portus Cale, the settlement at the mouth of the Douro, gave its name to the County of Portucale, created by Christian lords in the 9th century.

Guimarães was the county's early seat, and in 1128 the young Afonso Henriques won the battle of São Mamede nearby, the first step towards the kingdom he would proclaim. Porto grew as a merchant city; João I married Philippa of Lancaster in its cathedral in 1387, and their son, Henry the Navigator, was baptised there. The city's nickname of tripeiros, tripe-eaters, is traced to a legend that it gave its meat to the fleet sailing for Ceuta in 1415.

From the late 17th century the English trade in fortified wine made Porto rich, and in 1756 the Marquis of Pombal set the boundaries of the Douro wine region. Porto launched the liberal revolution of 1820 and withstood a year-long siege in the civil war of 1832–33. Through the 19th and 20th centuries the Minho and Trás-os-Montes sent emigrants to Brazil and then France, while the textile towns of the Ave valley industrialised. Porto's old centre was listed by UNESCO in 1996, the Alto Douro in 2001.

The north thinks of itself as the real Portugal — harder-working, more devout and more plain-spoken than Lisbon, and the rivalry with the capital is felt most sharply in football, where FC Porto carries the region's pride. Northern speech is recognisable by its "b" for "v". In the far northeast, around Miranda do Douro, Mirandese has official recognition as a separate language.

Religion is more visible here than anywhere else in the country. Braga's Holy Week is marked by solemn processions, and summer is a season of romarias, pilgrimage festivals mixing Mass, brass bands, fireworks and fairs. Among the largest is the Senhora da Agonia in Viana do Castelo each August, when women parade in red-and-black embroidered costume and heavy gold filigree necklaces. In Porto the São João festival fills the streets on the night of 23 June with grilled sardines, basil pots, paper balloons and plastic hammers used to tap passers-by on the head.

Trás-os-Montes keeps older rites: the masked, fringed Caretos of Podence run through their village at Carnival, a tradition listed by UNESCO as intangible heritage, and the Pauliteiros of Miranda perform a stick dance to bagpipes. Crafts include Viana filigree, the painted Barcelos cockerel and black pottery.

The north is home to more than three million people, most of them near the coast. Porto itself is a compact city, but its metropolitan area, taking in Vila Nova de Gaia, Matosinhos and Maia, holds about 1.9 million. Braga, with more than 200,000 in its municipality, is a young and growing city, and Guimarães is not far behind in size. Viana do Castelo, Vila Real and Bragança are smaller district capitals.

This is Portugal's industrial heartland. Textiles and clothing fill the Ave valley, shoes are made around Felgueiras, and the port of Leixões at Matosinhos handles much of the country's trade. The universities of Porto and Minho feed a growing technology sector, and wine, from vinho verde to port, is a large employer in the countryside. Tourism has transformed central Porto in a decade, and rising rents and short-term lets in the Ribeira and Baixa are a constant local argument.

Inland is different. Trás-os-Montes — "behind the mountains" — has lost much of its population to the coast and abroad, and its villages are now largely elderly, filling up only in August when emigrant families return from France and Switzerland. Days in the north begin with a coffee at the café, run to a long lunch, and end late in summer on Porto's riverfront and beaches.

Northern food is heavy, generous and built on pork, cabbage and bread. Porto's own dishes are tripas à moda do Porto, a stew of tripe with white beans and sausage, and bacalhau à Gomes de Sá, salt cod cooked with olive oil, onions, olives and egg. The francesinha, a sandwich layered with meats and covered in melted cheese and a beer-and-tomato sauce, is its modern emblem. Caldo verde, the kale-and-potato soup, comes from the Minho, along with rojões à minhota, fried pork chunks, and arroz de sarrabulho, a dark rice cooked with pork and blood. Lamprey is also stewed with rice in a sauce of its own blood.

Trás-os-Montes is smokehouse country. Alheira de Mirandela is a garlicky sausage of bread and poultry or game, presunto de Chaves is cured ham, and the posta mirandesa is a thick grilled steak from the Mirandesa cattle breed. Chaves also gives its name to a flaky, meat-filled pastry.

Wine is the north's great export. Port is made from grapes grown on the Douro terraces and traditionally aged in the lodges of Vila Nova de Gaia; the valley also produces strong red table wines. The Minho makes light, fresh vinho verde, and the Alvarinho grape of Monção and Melgaço gives its most prized version. Mateus Rosé, sold worldwide, takes its name and label from a palace near Vila Real.

Porto is best seen from the river. The Ribeira's tall, tiled houses climb from the quay to the cathedral, and the Dom Luís I bridge carries the metro across its top deck to the port lodges of Vila Nova de Gaia. Up the hill are São Bento station with its azulejo panels, the Clérigos tower, the Palácio da Bolsa and the Livraria Lello bookshop; further west lie the Serralves museum and park, the Casa da Música, and the beaches of Foz do Douro and Matosinhos.

The Douro Valley begins a couple of hours upriver. Its terraces, a UNESCO World Heritage landscape, are most dramatic between Peso da Régua and Pinhão, with viewpoints high above the river, and the Mateus Palace sits in its gardens near Vila Real. Amarante, on the Tâmega, has a granite bridge and convent church.

Braga holds a cathedral first built in the 12th century and, on its eastern hill, the Baroque staircase of Bom Jesus do Monte, a UNESCO site. Guimarães has its castle, the restored Palace of the Dukes of Braganza and the arcaded Largo da Oliveira, and the Iron Age Citânia de Briteiros lies between the two cities.

Peneda-Gerês National Park, Portugal's only national park, covers granite peaks, oak forests and waterfalls along the Spanish border, with the stone granaries of Soajo and Lindoso. Viana do Castelo has its hilltop Santa Luzia basilica and the hospital ship Gil Eannes, and Ponte de Lima its long medieval bridge. In the far northeast are Bragança's walled citadel, the Montesinho Natural Park and the gorges of the Douro at Miranda do Douro.