The best cycling routes around Nogueira

In Arcos, the highlight is its charming Romanesque bridge: the Ponte de São Miguel de Arcos, or simply Ponte de Arcos. It's estimated that this medieval bridge's origins date back to the 12th century. After years of supporting road traffic, it was freed from that burden in 2018 and is now pedestrian-only. A peaceful crossing with centuries of history beneath your feet.

The Dom Zameiro Bridge crosses the Ave River in a bucolic setting of vineyards and fields, connecting the parishes of Bagunte and Macieira da Maia. Although reminiscent of Roman architecture, its origins date back to the 12th or 13th centuries. Part of the old Via Veteriz, the medieval road that connected Porto to Barcelos and Esposende, it continues to welcome pilgrims today, with a small resting place. Windmills and a rural house complete the serene picture of a place where time seems to slow down.

You can take a break on it 😬

Good mountain

Unique place with excellent landscape and tranquility

The work entitled “Monument to the Farmer” was designed by Teresa Salgueiro and was inaugurated in 1982. Later, in 2000, it received an architectural setting designed by the architect João Portugal. The sculpture is located in Praça Domingos Nogueira da Costa, also known as “Rotunda do Lavrador”. The “Monument to the Farmer” is a tribute from the municipality to one of the most important professions in the entire city. Having been a rural city, agriculture was one of the main economic activities in Maia. This sculpture serves as a reminder of the city’s rural past, and highlights the image of the city’s farmers. According to Cátia Raquel da Hora e Silva, who wrote the dissertation “Sculpture in the public space of the municipality of Maia. Heritage appreciation and dissemination”, the architectural setting designed by João Portugal led to the “appearance of several elements associated with agricultural activity itself, including the wine press, the vine, trees and a cage for the turtledoves”. “The farmer appears to be calm and focused on his work of sowing. With his right leg in front of his left leg, the farmer appears to be moving while he sows. His body is thin and tall, and his right arm seems disproportionate to his body; the opposite arm is holding a basket of potatoes at his waist,” describes Cátia Raquel da Hora e Silva.

Based on the classic concept of the Arc de Triomphe in three volumes, it nevertheless reflects the simplicity and rectitude of the people of Maia when it uses smooth planes and rectilinear shapes. The side volumes, contrary to what is normal, have openings in a different direction from the central volume, which evokes a pluralism of visions and perspectives that has always been the prerogative of the Maiatos, as well as a unified vision of development, regardless of the cardinal point of the Maia territory. The raw materials also evoke two of its basic characteristics: bronze, which recalls religiosity, but also strength, tenacity and resistance, the paradigm of which is that of church bells; gold recalls the nobility of the Maiatos, but also the dominant colour of the corn cobs, a source of food and the wealth of this fertile land. The three volumes correspond to three fundamental pillars of the Maiata idiosyncrasy: religiosity, work and rural popular culture. The insertion of volumes with rectilinear shapes in a circular space such as the roundabout evokes the foreseen and planned rupture that Maia has experienced since the 1970s, which led to the municipality, from a very modest plan, becoming one of the five most important municipalities in the country, ceasing to be a rural municipality to become truly urban, without however losing the positive aspects of rurality: work, honesty, spirit of sacrifice, volunteerism, love for the land. These characteristics were the reason for the triumph of the people of Maia. A triumph that is embodied and embodied in some immortal winners, such as Lidador, Viscount Barreiros and Doctor José Vieira de Carvalho, as will be in the future all those who are capable, today, of learning from these examples and of building the future based on the foundations of the work and example of these builders of Maia. It celebrates the selfless effort of our People in the construction of our Land, and expresses the triumph of their work, which is clearly evident in the development that the municipality is experiencing.

This unique equestrian statue was created by the sculptor Lima de Carvalho and was inaugurated on July 9, 1984, as a tribute to the knight Gonçalo Mendes da Maia, one of the glorious soldiers who fought alongside D. Afonso Henriques for the independence and territorial expansion of Portugal. A hero of the Foundation of the Nationality, the first King of Portugal named him his Adeantado (leader of the troops). The nickname “O Lidador” is due to the many victories he achieved in battles against the Moors. Born in 1079, in his youth he was a turbulent and passionate nobleman, and died at the age of 90, fighting the Moors in the Battle of Ourique.