The best museums Porto And North

The oldest city hotel in the country (xii). The basement is occupied by a former water tank that fed the inhabitants during the wars with Spain. You can also open the doors of the church Santa Maria, which has a ceiling of the th, painted in trompe and representing l'Assomption.

Built in 1401, but never inhabited, the palace first surprises by its many rooms in rows, its chandeliers and its huge tapestries on the walls. Four copies of Pastrana are remarkable: those telling of the Portuguese conquests in North Africa, and those of Flemish origin executed by Rubens. On the roof of the building, strange very tall cylindrical red brick chimneys reflect the influence of the seigneurial architecture, unique in the Iberian Peninsula.

Instead, we should talk about the dungeon, because it is all that remains of this th century castle, which was used as a residence for the first duke of Bragança. Beautiful view across the region.

In the fortress dungeon, the Military Museum fills several small halls on three levels. Those who, in their childhood, loved the novels of Cape and sword will appreciate the collections of white arms and armor from the th to the th century. A steep staircase leads you to the top of the castle. Grandiose!

This museum, close to the Jardim do Palacio, recreates the atmosphere of the 19th century, lulled by the bourgeois pomp of the booming industrial era, when the city was at its economic peak. King Carlos Alberto do Piemonte lived here in precious luxury during his brief exile in Portugal in 1849. Almost all the rooms, redecorated in his memory, are open to the public, including the drawing room, the small chapel and the room where he died.