Ponte de Lima

PONTE DE LIMA – 23km east of Viana do Castelo – is a delightful place, whose pedestrianized old centre has no specific attraction other than its air of sleepy indifference to the wider world. Its lovely riverside gardens and local walks make it a great place for a night or two’s stopover. It only really gets vaguely busy in July or August, when it attracts a fair flow of tourists, a phenomenon that the local authorities have tried to capitalize on by building a nearby eighteen-hole golf course. Otherwise, lively times include the town’s bi-monthly Monday market, the oldest in Portugal, held since a charter was first granted in 1125 on the river’s wide sandbank beaches. A ramshackle collection of items is on sale, from mobile phone accessories to trussed chickens. Also held here is the “New Fair” (second and third weekend of Sept), a festival seemingly attended by half of the Minho, with fireworks, fairground rides, gigantones (enormous carnivalesque statues), and a brass band competition. More tradition is on display in early June, with the Vaca das Cordas festival, while the Expo Lima exhibition centre, on the east of the river, has various events throughout the year including a wine fair.