We're back in Braga

Can we live here? No better way to find out than to visit in the dead of winter. (55)

January and February are supposed to be the worst weather months in Portugal - coldest temperatures and more rain than other times of the year. So if we want to see if we can live in Braga, we figured we should visit at this time to see what it’s like.

We arrived yesterday (11 Jan) and are staying through Monday (16 Jan). We have an ambitious agenda:

• meet with a real estate agent to get the lay of the land this afternoon

• board game night at a local board game café this evening, which we threw together by putting a post on a Facebook group. (So far three people have committed to attending, one more says he’ll come if it isn’t raining (looks like a 50-50 shot we’ll see him), and six or eight others have expressed varying levels of interest. We’ll see what happens.)

• crashing the monthly gathering of Braga expats (organized on Facebook) on Saturday morning

• football game (spur-of-the-moment ticket purchase) FC Braga v Boavista on Saturday evening

• church in Porto on Sunday at 17h (about an hour travel each way, ugh!)

• shopping and wandering about town

• sampling area restaurants

So far the weather has definitely been chillier than what we left behind in Lisbon but in no way off-putting. Scott was out without even a fleece last night (won’t do it again, but it worked). The forecast had initially been very rainy but the percentage chance of precipitation keeps falling. We’ll see.

The train from Lisbon to Braga takes 4 hours and is very comfortable - and some awesome views too!

On route to our airbnb - in the same building as the one we stayed in back in October, we stopped for some decent but not great pizza. But the nutella calzone….

The pizza joint was one of those long and skiiiny places. Our seats were along this wall.

It wasn’t raining so out we went to the walk-through tree. They’ve built a stand over the same fountain we fell in love with last year.

The same fountain in October!

Braga at night is spectacular. The lighting warms the stonework and turns all the intricate carving into deep relief.

That’s all for now.

Love from … Braga!

Scott & Amy