Five things worth knowing before you plan the day
- Entry is free, day or night. The grounds are open around the clock and the basilica charges nothing — what people mean when they search for tickets.
- 573 steps, or 583. The Confraria counts 376 + 104 + 93 from the portico to the churchyard; English Wikipedia says 583, because the official page counts a further 34 stairs below the churchyard separately — both counts, explained.
- 1 of the 22 tours includes the funicular ticket. Several others advertise an “entrance ticket to Bom Jesus” for a site that charges no admission — see what each one actually lists.
- 11 of the 22 go on to Guimarães and 11 do not. The two-city day trip outsells everything else here, and it is the choice most worth thinking about — one day or two.
- TUB line 2 takes about half an hour. It runs from Avenida da Liberdade and the train station to the foot of the stairway, every 30 minutes on weekdays and hourly on Sundays — getting up the hill.
What costs nothing, and what a booking actually buys
The left column is what any visitor gets for free. The right column is the only reason to hand anybody money.
Free, with nothing to buy
- The sanctuary grounds, open 24 hours a day, year-round
- The whole Baroque stairway — the Via Sacra, the Five Senses and the Three Virtues
- The basilica, roughly 08:00–19:00 in summer and 09:00–18:00 in winter — check the season on opening hours
- The park, the woodland paths and the lake behind the church
What a paid tour adds
- Transport, which is the real cost of a visit from Porto — train or tour
- A licensed guide who can tell you what the fountains are for — what to look at
- The funicular ticket on 1 of the 22 tours, the small-group walking tour at €59 per person
- Entry to things that do charge, such as Braga Cathedral and Guimarães Castle
The climb, in order
Seven stops between the road and the church, and what each one is.
You can start at the portico at the bottom, or you can take the funicular and walk down through the same sequence in reverse. Coming up on foot is the way the hillside was designed to be read, and it is why I keep sending people to the bottom gate first.
- The portico — The gate where the Confraria starts counting. From here to the churchyard is 573 steps by the official count, a climb of 116 metres; a further 34 stairs sit below the churchyard and are counted separately, which is where the rival figure of 583 comes from. Both counts, and why they differ.
- The Via Sacra chapels — The first flight, lined with chapels holding terracotta scenes of the Passion. Eight primitive chapels were traced here in the 1700s and only the first two survive.
- Escadório dos Cinco Sentidos — 376 steps above the portico the stairway starts to zigzag, with a fountain at each turn for Sight, Smell, Hearing, Touch and Taste. Water runs out of the eyes, the nose, the ears and the mouth. UNESCO calls this the most recognisable Baroque element on the hill.
- Escadório das Três Virtudes — Another 104 steps, added around 1781, with a fountain each for Faith, Hope and Charity. The parapets carry armillary spheres and pyramids at the angles.
- The churchyard — 93 steps more and the stairway stops. This is the flat terrace in front of the church, and the point where most people turn round and look at Braga for the first time.
- The basilica — Carlos Amarante’s Neoclassical church, built 1784–1811 and consecrated in 1834, standing where an earlier Baroque church of about 1725 by Manuel Pinto Vilalobos stood. Entry is free. How it got built.
- The park and the lake — Behind the church the ground levels out into wooded park with a lake, where rowing boats go out for a few euros. Most day trips never get this far, which is the whole argument of the two-city page.
Nothing in that list has a turnstile. If you want the hill explained while you walk it, the two-hour guided trail runs at €30 per person and the small-group walking tour at €59 per person with the funicular included; both are on the tours page.
How to decide, in four questions
Where are you sleeping?
In Braga, take the bus and walk up. In Porto, the choice is a train and a bus against a booked day trip.
How are your knees?
The official 573 steps are a real climb; the funicular removes them in under four minutes.
Do you want Guimarães too?
11 of the 22 tours add a second walled city to the same day. 11 stay in Braga.
Do you want anyone talking?
The site is free and self-guided works. A guide is worth it if you want the fountains and the chapels read to you.
The tour most people end up on
The full-day Braga and Guimarães trip from Porto has 4,593 reviews at 4.6 stars and starts at €34 per person, which is the cheapest way I know to be driven to both cities in one day. It runs about nine hours in an air-conditioned minibus with a maximum capacity of 27 people, so read “small group” with that number in mind.
Three ways to be shown around, compared
A full day out of Porto, a half-day walk with the funicular thrown in, and two hours on the hill itself. All three prices are per person.
| Most reviewedFrom Porto: Braga & Guimarães Tour with Bom Jesus & Castle | Braga Small-Group Walking Tour & Bom Jesus | Historical Trail of Bom Jesus do Monte | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | €34 / person | €59 / person | €30 / person |
| Hours | 9 | 3 | 2 |
| Rating | 4.6 (4,593) | 5.0 (10) | 4.4 (5) |
| Funicular ticket | No | Yes | No |
| Guimarães | Yes | No | No |
| Transport | Minibus, max 27 | Private transfer, max 8 | Not included — meet on site |
| Best for | Two cities, one day | The hill with a licensed guide | The cheapest guided hour on the stairway |
| Book this → | View → | View → |
Photo Gallery
Bom Jesus do Monte, from the bottom gate up
The stairway, the church and the tours that go there.
Six of the 22, chosen by the decision they answer
Not a ranking. The proven day trip, the two sanctuary-only options, Braga without Guimarães, a mid-price two-city day and a private car — the rest are on the full list.
Most reviewedFrom Porto: Braga & Guimarães Tour with Bom Jesus & Castle
Funicular includedBraga Small-Group Walking Tour & Bom Jesus
Sanctuary onlyHistorical Trail of Bom Jesus do Monte
Braga onlyFrom Porto: Braga Day Trip with Bom Jesus & Cathedral Ticket
With tapasFrom Porto: Braga & Guimarães — History & Local Flavours
Two sanctuariesBraga: Private Tour with Bom Jesus & Sameiro and more
This is what the climb actually looks like
Six photographs of the sanctuary taken by people who were standing there. You could take shots like these yourself, from the same steps, on any day of the year — nobody checks a ticket at the bottom. Click any photograph to see it full size.
What five-star reviewers keep saying
The most useful reviews on this site are not the complaints. They are the five-star ones that end with a wish for more time.
Nuno and Miguel were engaging and kept a long day fun and interesting… I wish we had time at Bom Jesus though!
Everything was great. More time for the castle, please!
Beautiful place and great guide… if I could give my opinion, I would spend more time in Guimarães than in Braga.
I am less mobile than the rest of the group and solutions were found around it.
Never made things feel rushed… the trip up to Bom Jesus is easy and well worth doing.
A good way to do a superficial tour of the city.
Ratings and reviews are the operators’ live GetYourGuide figures. Read our full tour reviews ›
Quick answers before you book anything
The four questions I get asked at the bottom of the stairway, in the order I get them.
So what am I paying for?
Transport and a person who can talk. The grounds and the basilica are free, so no tour on this site is selling you entry to the sanctuary — several list an “entrance ticket to Bom Jesus” anyway, and I have put the two facts next to each other on the tickets page. What genuinely costs money is the funicular, Braga Cathedral and Guimarães Castle.
Do I have to climb it?
No. The funicular has been carrying people up the same 116 metres since 1882 and takes between two and a half and four minutes, for a couple of euros paid on the spot. Only 1 of the 22 tours includes that ticket. More on the funicular, and on visiting with limited mobility.
Is a private tour worth it?
It depends how many of you there are, and you have to read the unit. The Tesla private tour is €230 per group and the private walking tour is €262 per group — that is the whole car or the whole group, not each person. Split four ways they stop looking mad. The private options.
What will the day cost me in total?
If you walk up from the bus, close to nothing. Add a bus fare, a funicular ride and lunch and you are still in single figures for the sanctuary itself. The arithmetic, with the sources and their dates, is on what it costs.
Can’t make these dates?
Browse more available Bom Jesus do Monte tours and find one that fits your schedule — all with instant confirmation and free cancellation.
Bom Jesus do Monte, explained
Most of the confusion about this place goes away once you accept that the stairway is not the route to the church. It is the point of the church. The chapels, the zigzags, the fountains with water coming out of their eyes: all of it is meant to be walked through in one order, and it took more than six hundred years to build that way.
What a sacred mount is
After the Council of Trent, the Catholic church in southern Europe took to building artificial pilgrimage hills: a wooded slope, a stepped path, chapels along it, a church at the summit. A person who could not get to Jerusalem could walk a scale model of it at home. UNESCO uses that language about Braga, calling the hillside a cultural landscape that evokes Christian Jerusalem, and inscribed it in 2019 under criterion (iv) — 26 hectares of property inside a 232-hectare buffer zone, listed as a landscape and not as a building. The confraternity that owns it, the Confraria do Bom Jesus do Monte, dates from 1629: the brotherhood, not the church you can see, which is why I never write that the sanctuary dates from 1629.
Read the rest of the guide — why the stairway is shaped the way it is, the argument you walk up, the funicular as engineering, and what a guide adds when the site itself is free.
Frequently asked questions
Where is Bom Jesus do Monte?
On the slopes of Mount Espinho, about six kilometres east of the centre of Braga in northern Portugal, and 42 km north of Porto by road. TUB line 2 runs from Avenida da Liberdade and the train station to the foot of the stairway in about half an hour, every 30 minutes on weekdays and hourly on Sundays. Full directions, including parking, are on how to get there.
What is there to see at Bom Jesus do Monte?
A stairway of 573 steps by the Confraria’s count — English Wikipedia says 583 — in three flights: the Via Sacra with its Passion chapels, the zigzag Five Senses stairway with a fountain each for Sight, Smell, Hearing, Touch and Taste, and the Three Virtues stairway of about 1781 with fountains for Faith, Hope and Charity. At the top there is the basilica, and behind it a park and a lake. See what to look at and the stairway in detail.
What is the history of Bom Jesus do Monte?
The confraternity that runs the hill dates from 1629 and the site was built up over more than 600 years, so no single date covers it. The present Neoclassical church is by Carlos Amarante, built between 1784 and 1811 and consecrated in 1834, and it replaced a Baroque church of about 1725 by Manuel Pinto Vilalobos. UNESCO listed the hillside in 2019 under criterion (iv) as a cultural landscape that evokes Christian Jerusalem. More on how it was built.
Is Braga worth visiting?
For a day, yes, and Bom Jesus is the reason most people come. The sanctuary is free, the cathedral and the old centre are a bus ride away, and the whole thing works as a day out of Porto. Whether it is worth a guided tour rather than a train ticket is a different question — I have argued both sides on is it worth it and getting here from Porto.
Can you visit Braga and Guimarães in the same day?
You can, and 11 of the 22 tours on this site do exactly that. The most detailed independent local guide I have read argues against it, on the grounds that you barely scratch either city. Its own five-star reviewers say something similar in their own words: James wished for more time at Bom Jesus, Ricardo wanted more time at the castle. One day or two sets out who each answer suits.
Are there trains from Porto to Braga?
Yes. Trains leave Porto São Bento, and can also be boarded at Campanhã, taking 54 or 71 minutes depending on the service, at about €3.60 for an adult and €1.80 for a child. There are 20 departures a day with 7 extra from Monday to Friday. When the €34 day tour beats the train, and when it does not, is worked through on the Porto page.
What is the nearest airport to Braga?
Porto Airport, about 50 minutes away on the Get Bus, which runs 8 times a day and 11 on weekdays. From Lisbon you are looking at a long train instead, which is covered on getting here from Lisbon. Once you are in Braga, everything else is on how to get there.
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