Experience the best of Lamego

Lamego lies in northern Portugal, east of Porto, on the southern side of the Douro valley. The town has a Gothic cathedral with a Renaissance cloister and a small hilltop castle with a medieval keep and cistern. Above the centre, the Sanctuary of Nossa Senhora dos Remédios crowns a wooded hill, reached by a monumental baroque stairway of more than six hundred steps, zigzagging up through white terraces with statues, fountains and chapels.

The Museum of Lamego, in the former bishop's palace, shows Flemish tapestries and paintings by the sixteenth-century master Grão Vasco. The terraced vineyards of the Douro, a UNESCO World Heritage landscape, begin a few kilometres north, with the river town of Régua and cruises on the water. The monastery at São João de Tarouca lies to the south-east and Viseu farther south.

Sparkling wine is Lamego's pride, and its smoked ham, presunto, appears sliced thin or baked into the bola de Lamego, a bread filled with ham. Douro table wines and port are everywhere. The grape harvest in autumn turns the hillsides gold and rust, and a pilgrim festival fills the sanctuary stairs in early September.