We never went to the Space Needle until a visiting family member asked to see it. At one point we both worked approximately five minutes, on foot, from the base of the Needle but it always seemed like part of the landscape because we saw it every single day. When we finally went up, naturally, we had a wonderful time taking in the fantastic view of the city and the Sound so it wasn’t like we were too cool for school; we just never got around to it. Clearly we can be slow learners because it took us until Lisa’s sister visited for us to go up the hill and visit Braga’s most iconic location, the Sanctuary of Bom Jesus do Monte.
John has actually been around Bom Jesus a number of times; back when he was building up endurance for a potential week-long hike in the north of England, he would walk himself up the hill to the Sanctuary every week or so. On those occassions, though, he’d just climb all the way to the top, pant and wheeze for a few minutes, and then make his way back down. This time we just took a car. We meant to start with the Sanctuary but got a little turned around with the road signs and so began our expedition at the other major religious site a couple of kilometers away, the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Sameiro. (Us cool locals just call it “Sameiro.”) Funnily enough, some of us actually like Sameiro better – the building itself is more robust and the layout is easier to navigate, plus the view overlooking the valley is at least as nice.
Backtracking a bit, we made it to Bom Jesus and had a look around. The key feature of course, and the thing that can catch your eye down in the city if you ever tilt your head back a little, is the baroque, zigzagging staircase. It was begun in 1721 and had its last addition completed in the 1780s; multiple archbishops got their mitts on it, each wanting to (one presumes) glorify God and (it can be observed) themselves as well. The fountains (the dark gray things running up the center of the picture below) embody the 5 senses – at each one, spigots emit water from the ears, or the nose, or the eyes etc… of a large face. Thematically on-point, they are a little odd to look at.
It was the wrong time of year to really dawdle; there’s a park behind the Sanctuary with a duck pond and even paddle boats for you to tool around in, but it was cold and overcast and just not a day for lollygagging in a field. Given that none of the three of us are particularly religious, or at least Catholic, we took far more interest in the scenery than the chapels and such, but the two locations make for a fascinating afternoon that lets you look at our town from a literal and metaphorical fresh perspective.
