Museu do Abade de Baçal

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Set in a restored 18th-century bishop’s palace, this is one of Portugal’s best regional museums. Its diverse collections include local artefacts from the Celtic and Roman eras, along with objects, paintings and photographs depicting daily life in Trás-os-Montes from medieval times to the present.

Of particular interest are the handful of Iron Age stone pigs called berrões. The museum also features works by Portuguese naturalist painter Aurélia de Sousa and her contemporaries, as well as Christian pieces from India, which depict Jesus in a style highly influenced by Hindu and Buddhist art.

Lonely Planet's must-see attractions

  • Cidadela

    Cidadela

    0.27 MILES

    Climb uphill from Largo de São Vicente and you’ll soon set foot inside the astonishingly well-preserved 12th-century citadel. People still live in its…

  • Rio de Onor

    Rio de Onor

    11.67 MILES

    This lovely little town of 70 souls situated in the eastern half of the park is entirely unfazed by the Spanish–Portuguese border splicing it down the…

  • Dine

    Dine

    11.66 MILES

    One of the prettiest, best-preserved villages in the western half of the park, Dine is home to a tiny archaeological museum, which documents the 1984 find…

  • Domus Municipalis

    Domus Municipalis

    0.28 MILES

    Squatting at the rear of the Cidadela is an odd pentagonal building known as the Domus Municipalis, the oldest town hall in Portugal (although its precise…

  • Montesinho

    Montesinho

    9.23 MILES

    Hidden at the end of the road in a narrow valley wedged between forbidding granite heights, this tiny village is one of the park’s best-preserved, thanks…

  • Moimenta

    Moimenta

    15.18 MILES

    Moimenta has a lovely core of granite houses roofed in terracotta, plus a small baroque church – a rare dose of luxury in this austere corner of Portugal…

  • Museu Militar

    Museu Militar

    0.26 MILES

    The stout Torre de Menagem now houses this lacklustre museum, but the price of admission is well worth the chance to climb storey after storey and take in…

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Nearby attractions

1. Centro de Fotografia Georges Dussaud

0.05 MILES

This small museum is worth a visit just to see the evocative black-and-white photos of everyday transmontana people taken in the 1980s by French…

2. Igreja de São Vicente

0.06 MILES

Romanesque in origin but rebuilt in the 17th century, this church may have played host to a chapter in Portugal’s favourite (and grisliest) love story…

5. Sé

0.16 MILES

Bragança’s modest old cathedral started out in 1545 as the Igreja de São João Baptista, but moved up the ranks to become a cathedral in 1770 when the…

6. Igreja de São Bento

0.17 MILES

Bragança’s most attractive church has a Renaissance stone portal, a wonderful trompe l’œil ceiling over the nave and an Arabic-style inlaid ceiling above…

7. Museu Ibérico da Máscara e do Traje

0.23 MILES

This visually appealing little museum displays a colourful and fascinating collection of masks and costumes from the ancient pagan-based solstice and…

8. Pelourinho

0.24 MILES

In front of the Torre de Menagem is an extraordinary primitive pelourinho (stone pillory) atop a granite boar similar to the berrões found elsewhere…

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