BragaSights

Museum sights in Braga

  1. A

    Archaeological Museum

    The new archaeological museum houses a nicely displayed collection of fragments from Braga’s earliest days. The four rooms feature pieces from Palaeolithic times (arrowheads, funerary objects and ceramics) through the days of Roman rule (when Braga was known as Bracara Augusta) and on up to the period dominated by the Suevi-Visigoth kingdom (5th through 7th centuries). The most fascinating pieces are the huge miliários (milestones), carved with Latin inscriptions, that marked the Roman roads. There is also a section of mosaic flooring recovered from a local site, which dates from the 1st century AD.

    reviewed

  2. B

    Municipal Museum

    An 18th-century aristocrat’s palace is now home to the enthusiastic municipal museum, with a nice collection of Roman relics and 17th- to 19th-century pottery and furnishings. The palace itself is the reason to come, with its polychrome, chestnut-panelled ceilings and 18th-century azulejos depicting hunting scenes. The ground floor is paved with deeply ribbed flagstones on which carriages would have once rattled through to the stables. The mazelike gardens at the rear also warrant a visit.

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