Guimaraes - historical center - Krista photo
1. Guimarães much friendlier, more harmonic, more relaxed than Braga
2. The picture-perfect Old Town is like a living museum - you see all the tourists smiling, as they enjoy so much to be part of this time travel back in the Middle Age
3. In the Old Town, we deliberately left the touristy streets and walked on almost empty streets along with the same kind of medieval houses - we have managed to make a lot of photos without other tourists on them
4. The cutest, most typical medieval houses are, however, around the Praca do Toural (a famous square) - the balconies are full of flowers - so beautiful.
5. Easy to discover the Old Town as it is on a flat terrain
6. The principal medieval castle (built in the 10th century) and the Paco dos Duques de Braganca from the 15th century (the Ducal Palace of the Bragança, the other remarkable castle) are walking distance from the Old Town - the whole town is walkable from the tourist point of view
1. On the garlanded big square (Largo República do Brasil) the Chinese group tourists who are only interested in making photos on each other in idiotic, theatrical postures
2. The town is not interesting beyond the Old Town, and so Guimarães is a 2-hours destination
3. We do not recommend to take the Guimarães lift, a mountain cable car (teleferico), as the view from above is not that interesting
4. The town is almost empty in the weekday evenings - a kind of strange that in a southern European city the locals don't like to go out after dark (on Friday and Saturday evenings only)
5. Don't try to find a parking place within the Old Town - there is a convenient parkhouse just 5 minutes away
