Tuesday, June 19, 16:00 – 20:00
Excursion to Braga’s City Center (map below):
- Visit to Braga’s Cathedral and Cathedral’s Museum (with a little organ concert)
- Visit to Largo do Paço (University Rectory)
- Reception (“Verde d’Honra”) at Museum D. Diogo de Sousa (with a little folk dance show)
Bus pick-up at 15h30, from the bus stop 50 metres south of the roundabout next to the main entrance of the campus.
Wednesday, June 20, 20:00
Conference Dinner, Hotel do Elevador, Bom Jesus (map below)
Bus pick-up at 19h. One bus starts from the same bus stop as on Tuesday. Another bus starts from the bus stop in Largo da Senhora-a-Branca in the city center.
Bus return at 23h.
Notes on the programme
On Tuesday, June 19, we will visit the cathedral and most of its chapels, and enjoy a little concert by the cathedral’s baroque organ (see below for the programme of the concert). The cathedral’s museum includes many works of sculpture, painting, jewelry, and liturgical artifacts – and also what is believed to be the cross with which the first Mass in Brazil was celebrated. Despite visiting the tombs of several notable archbishops, we will miss the one of D. Diogo de Sousa, since it is located in a chapel open to worship. D. Diogo de Sousa is arguably the most important archbishop in the history of the city, and we will end the afternoon in a museum named after him. Before that, we leave the cathedral and across the street we enter Largo do Paço, the square delimited by Paço Arquiepiscopal, the ancient official residence of the Archbishop, where nowadays the University Rectory is located. While visiting some of the most important rooms of the palace, we will learn something about the relationship between the Church and the State.
The conference dinner, on Wednesday June 20, will take place in a hotel located in Bom Jesus, a sanctuary and a park in a hill next to Braga. Walking up to this site is a doable and pleasing experience, specially climbing the wonderful stairway, with its baroque and neo-classical sections, chapels of the via crucis, and beautiful views of the city. No less fun is going up in the Elevador, the oldest water-pumped funicular in the world still in operation.
Programme of the organ concert
- Excerpt from the piece “Quatro Piezas de Clarines” – Anonymous Composer;
- “Sonata em Lá menor” K. 75 – Carlos Seixas (1704-1742);
- Chorale “Sei Gegrübet, Jesu Gütig” – Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750);
- “Voluntary I” (Larghetto) – William Boyce (1711-1779) ;
- “Marche des Turcs” – Jean Baptiste Lully (1632 – 1687).