On my first visit to Portugal two decades ago, Bom Jesus do Monte was one of the destinations I planned to see, but I had to cut Bragas from the plan as the Guimares – Bragas bus did not show up as per schedule. When my friend asked me to join their wine trip in Portugal, Bom Jesus do Monte was add as a condition of my participation. As a result, on one Sunday afternoon, we drove from Porto to Bragas to fulfil my old itinerary. When we reach the carpark area, my unhappy and reluctant friends who wanted this visit to be short suggested that we should not use funicular and better to drive up to the top of the hill, but I as a driver had a different idea. I knew that there is a small parking lot at the base of the famous staircases which make the visit easy and free of charge. Lucky to us when we reached that small area, one space was free to park, and with very short walk, the magnificent famous stairs were in front of us. 

This kind of architecture I have seen before in old Portuguese colony of Goa at Panaji to be exact, but the size of zigzagging stairs Bom Jesus do Monte was indeed much bigger and more impressive. My friends were in state of awe, the same with me. It was not just the stairs, but the baroque statues, decorations, motifs, fountains were indeed the whole package of beauty. The proportion of the whole design was incredible, how could engineers and architects arrange the scale of each level of stairs to be in such perfect form when seeing from below. At first, I planned to end the trip here but my friend, who originally wanted to go back to Porto as soon as possible, eagerly insisted that we should climb the stairs to the top! A chance to see the small chapels along the way which in my opinion were like those Sacri Monti in Northern Italy. Apart from the stairs, I found that the church and other areas were nice but nothing special or unique.

Since Bom Jesus do Monte has been a major sight of Northern Portugal for a long time, after listed by UNESCO, the place even become more famous, the number of tourists when I was there was unbelievable. I saw big tour buses carried large groups of tourists from Asia and US, the stairs, the church were overcrowded and toilet queue for women was incredibly long, luckily that all those disappeared after 5PM! I afraid that with horde of people on the beautiful stairs, running, climbing for photographs, some measure will be put up in the future. For me, able to fulfil an old travel plan was simply a great moment despite its World Heritage Site status or not, but the most rewarding was to see the eagerness from my friends, the site that they had no idea and no interest to visit became their favorite, second only to the wines in Alto Duoro!