Porto Cathedral

You are standing at the highest point of old Porto, on the windy hilltop of Penaventosa. Look around you at the Terreiro da Sé, a square that has served as the city’s civic and spiritual heart for nearly a thousand years. Before you stands the Porto Cathedral, or Sé do Porto, an imposing granite monument that looks more like a military castle than a typical house of worship. Founded in the early twelfth century by Bishop Hugo, a French nobleman who arrived even before Portugal became an independent kingdom, this building was designed to be a haven. In those turbulent times, a church needed to do more than offer prayers; it needed to offer protection.^[1] As you look at those massive twin towers and the thick, notched battlements, you are seeing a survival from an era when the city’s bishop was also its military defender. Take a moment to breathe in the history here, where the very stones under your feet represent the birth of Porto itself.