Bairro do Castelo - Porta dos Figos - Cisterna de Lamego | Portugal

Hello everyone :)

Let's go to the last article about the visit we made to the city of Lamego.

I've already had the opportunity to share some images and details about some of the most iconic places, such as climbing the 686 steps that give access to the Sanctuary of Nossa Senhora dos Remédios, as well as the Cathedral located in the center of the city, a brief look at the central square where you can also find the Museum and the famous Theater of Lamego and finally the beautiful castle on top of the hill.

Today, to finish, we're going to take a walk around "Bairro do Castelo", the area that embraces the Castle and where we can visit some other very interesting places.

It was in this higher spot that we parked the car, very close to the Church of Santa Maria de Almacave, a Romanesque monument from the 12th century that lost part of its volume after some remodeling over the centuries and to which a ferocious fire also contributed to destroy a large part of its interior, immaculate to date, with some old structures and works being part of the inventory.
Unfortunately, the monument was closed to the public, so i did not have the opportunity to obtain photographic records of its interior.
From there, we decided to start going up a narrow street to the right that took us directly to the well-known "Porta dos Figos" (Figos Door) that marks the entrance to the "Bairro do Castelo" and where the Archaeological Nucleus and the Interpretive Center of the Castle are also located.
In that space, the most important archaeological collections of Lamego are gathered, through which it is possible to point out a whole dynamic and transformation that took place over more than two thousand years of historical records.

After researching details about the place, i learned that this space was already occupied by Romans and Visigoths between the 1st and 7th centuries, as well as being transformed into a cemetery and later abandoned to make way for the Bairro do Castelo that today we can visit, with all its traces of past times, this place was once promoted to episcopal headquarters.
Within those high walls we can venture down different paths that look more like elaborate labyrinths, on a larger scale than the place that made me remember for a moment, a place in Coimbra called Portugal dos Pequenitos, where we can find several buildings icons in reduced point.

Now I don't remember, but maybe they represented Bairro do Castelo there 😊
All the facades, as well as the pavement of the narrow streets, are made of stone, which makes the environment very cool, which is an asset, especially when the weather is warmer, and walking those streets in the sun would eventually become painful and tiring.
After reaching the Castle above (already portrayed in the previous article) we start to go down the hill along the Cisterna street.

It was quickly possible to associate the name of the Street with the place that we found a few meters further down, denounced by yet another street show taking place in a small square right in front of the Lamego Cistern.
I just had to follow the movement of the people who were there with my eyes and i immediately identified a small gate in the middle of a long wall through which several people were entering and leaving.

It was inside that enclosure that we were received by a very friendly guide who was camouflaged among the other visitors and only made himself noticed whenever he welcomed those who arrived there, indicating another entrance on the right with access to the interior of this Cistern, considered one of the most remarkable and perfectly recovered cisterns, dating from the medieval period.
There, the central element is water and all of its construction was designed and centered on this increasingly fundamental element, all built in granite with an area of 20 meters long by 10 meters wide, which despite seeming a bit cramped for its function, once inside it is quite spacious and with a very pleasant temperature.
At the top there is a small opening through which natural light passes and the walls are full of symbols that i couldn't identify the symbolism but that give a very mysterious look to the space.

Leaving the cistern behind, with a very warm "come back" from the Guide, the direction was downwards, making us go through another portal outside the walls of the Castelo neighborhood and along the way we had the opportunity to pass by the Music Academy from Lamego, next to the Municipal Library and archive.

And so we reach the last session of this trip through Lamego, i hope you enjoyed it.
Don't miss the next trip :)

Photo by @aleister
Camera - Canon EOS 600D
Lens - EFS 18-55mm / 70-300mm
Location - Portugal

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Value your time, because every fraction counts, and the price of anything is the amount of life you trade for it.
May the memories of the travels be eternalized in the photographs, and may the photographs transport us back to the travels ;)