The name tells you everything. Chaves means "keys" in Portuguese, and for a thousand years this was the Key to the Kingdom, the fortress town that held the northern frontier against Spain. Stand on the ramparts of the medieval castle today, and you can still see why the geography mattered so much. The Spanish border is just 12km away, the Tâmega valley spreads out below you, and every army that marched on Portugal from the north came past these walls.

But the military story is only half of it. Long before the castle was built, the Romans founded the town for an entirely different reason: the hot springs that bubble up here at a steady 73°C, one of the hottest springs in mainland Europe. They called the settlement Aquae Flaviae and built the largest therapeutic bath complex on the Iberian Peninsula around the source, the remains of which were rediscovered by accident in 2006 and now form one of the country's most remarkable archaeological sites. Two thousand years on, people still travel from across Portugal to take the waters, and you can walk into the Fonte do Tabolado and pour yourself a glass straight from the source, with locals standing alongside you adding it to their morning coffee.

These two identities, fortress and spa, sit side by side. The Ponte de Trajano bridge has carried traffic across the Tâmega for nearly two thousand years, and the original Roman milestones still stand at its centre. Cobbled lanes wind between granite houses up to the Praça de Camões, where the Gothic Igreja Matriz and the old town hall face each other across the square. The restaurants along the back streets serve the hearty Trasmontano cooking that this corner of the country does better than anywhere else: cozido à transmontana heaped on the plate, smoked presunto, and the local sausages the region is famous for.

 

 

Beyond the town, you are well placed for some of the wildest country in Portugal. The granite peaks of the Peneda-Gerês National Park lie to the west, the hilltop citadel of Bragança to the east, and closer to hand is the elegant spa town of Vidago. Chaves is also where the famous N2 road begins its 739km journey south to Faro, and you will often see bikers gathering around the first marker stone.

I have been exploring Portugal since 2001 and, together with my Portuguese wife, I have returned to Chaves many times over the years. This guide shares what we have learned, so you can make the most of a town that few visit but which I think deserves to be much better known.

The Roman baths museum - The largest Roman therapeutic baths ever found on the Iberian Peninsula, buried by an earthquake in the 4th century and rediscovered by accident in 2006. Glass walkways now lead visitors above the excavated complex.

The Ponte de Trajano - A magnificent feat of Roman engineering, the bridge has spanned the Tâmega River for nearly 2,000 years. At its centre stand two original Roman milestones, honouring the emperors Vespasian and Trajan.

The Castelo de Chaves - The 14th century granite keep is all that remains of the medieval castle, and now houses the town's military museum. The climb to the roof gives the best panorama in Chaves, looking out over the rooftops to the Spanish frontier.

The Praça de Camões - The elegant Praça de Camões is the historic and civic heart of Chaves, lined by the town's most important buildings. Among them are the Paços do Concelho (Town Hall) and the Gothic Igreja Matriz de Santa Maria Maior.

The Alameda de Trajano Riverside Walk - This tree-lined promenade follows the banks of the Tâmega and offers beautiful views of the Roman bridge and the historic town.

Chaves is a charming little town and makes for a great day out if you are already exploring the north, but I would not recommend driving the 150km from Porto purely to visit. The journey takes around 90 minutes each way, and if you are based in Porto there are far better day trips closer to hand, such as Braga, Guimarães or Lamego. The one exception is if you are specifically coming for the thermal baths at the Termas & Spa complex, in which case I would suggest staying the night rather than rushing back.

The town itself is compact and easily covered on foot, and my own wanderings around the historic centre take around three hours at a relaxed pace. The main sights all sit within a short walk of one another, and the riverside paths along the Tâmega are a pleasant way to extend the day if you have the time.

Below is the walking route I would recommend, taking in the main sights of the town in the order that makes most sense on foot.

Sights of the day trip: 1) Praça de Camões 2) Castelo de Chaves 3) Igreja Matriz de Santa María Maior 4) Ponte de Trajano 5) Igreja de São João de Deus 6) Alameda de Trajano river walk 7) Termas & Spa 8) Fuente de agua (free spa water to try) 9) Castle walls 10) Roman baths museum 11) Praça General Silveira 12) São Francisco fort (now a hotel)

The gothic interior of the Matriz de Santa María Maior

Given how much driving is involved in reaching Chaves, you may well decide that a single day does not justify the journey, and that staying a night or two makes more sense. The town has a good selection of restaurants serving the hearty Trasmontano cooking the region is known for, a handful of bars, plenty of small shops, and the kind of unhurried small-town atmosphere that is increasingly hard to find elsewhere in Portugal. An evening here, with dinner in one of the back-street restaurants and a stroll along the river, is a lovely thing.

Chaves also makes for a fine base from which to explore the far north of the country and the wider Trás-os-Montes region. The granite peaks of the Peneda-Gerês National Park lie a little over an hour to the west, and the hilltop citadel of Bragança is a similar distance to the east. Closer to hand are the elegant spa town of Vidago, its Spanish counterpart Verín just across the border, the ruined Castelo de Monforte, and the curious balancing rock at Pedra Bolideira.

The map below shows the location of the best hotels and accommodation in Chaves. If you adjust the dates to your stay, it will display current prices and availability.

The name of the town stands on the Praça General Silveira, one of the lesser plazas of Chaves

The Ponte de Trajano is the oldest surviving structure in Chaves, a low granite bridge that has carried travellers across the Tâmega for nearly 2,000 years. Roman legions, medieval merchants, Napoleonic armies, modern tourists. They have all crossed at this same point.

Construction began in the late 1st century under Emperor Vespasian and was completed in 104 AD, during the reign of his nephew Trajan, after whom the bridge is now named. It formed part of the Roman road from Braga to Astorga in Spain, one of the great trunk routes of the empire's northwest, with Chaves and its hot springs sitting right in the middle of it.

The bridge is 140m long and originally had 18 arches spanning the river. The Tâmega has narrowed over the centuries, and today 16 arches remain, of which only 12 are visible from above, the rest having been swallowed up by later buildings on the eastern bank. Remarkably, until the 1950s this was still the only bridge across the river in Chaves.

At its centre stand two granite columns, replicas of the Roman commemorative pillars that once marked this spot. The originals are kept in the Museu da Região Flaviense on the Praça de Camões. The first records that the bridge was paid for by the people of Chaves and dedicates the work to Emperor Trajan. The second, the Padrão dos Povos, is dedicated to the earlier emperors Titus and Vespasian and lists the ten local communities, the civitates, who contributed to its construction. It is an early piece of imperial public relations, naming and thanking the locals with the quiet intent of binding them more closely to Rome.

A third column was discovered in 1980, lying in the riverbed during a dredging operation, and now sits alongside the others in the regional museum.

The Padrão dos Povos, an early form of Roman propaganda

Deep below the Tâmega valley runs the Corga tectonic fracture, which allows highly mineralised water to escape to the surface. One of these springs surfaces here in Chaves at a steady 73°C, making it one of the hottest natural springs in mainland Europe and the reason the Romans founded the town in the first place.

The water is rich in sodium bicarbonate, silica, fluorides and lithium, and the Romans believed in its healing properties for everything from rheumatism to digestive complaints. They were not alone. The springs came back into fashion in the mid-17th century, and Chaves has been a working spa town ever since, with Portuguese visitors travelling here to bathe and drink the water for generations.

A glass of the good water, just mind, it is at 73C!

The Roman baths museum
The Roman baths in Chaves were discovered entirely by accident in 2006, when the city was excavating the foundations for an underground car park. What the workmen had stumbled across turned out to be the largest Roman therapeutic baths ever found on the Iberian Peninsula. The complex had been buried by an earthquake at the end of the 4th century and lay forgotten for nearly 1,600 years, which is precisely why so much of it has survived.

What makes the site particularly unusual is that these were therapeutic baths, rather than the hygienic public baths found in most Roman towns. Think of it less as a Roman leisure centre and more as a Roman hospital, with patients travelling here from across the province for the healing properties of the water.

The Museu das Termas Romanas de Chaves is free to enter, and explains each area of the complex as you walk above it on a series of glass walkways. I would strong encourage a visit even if you are not normally drawn to archaeological sites, because the scale of the site is remarkable. museutermasromanaschaves.pt/

Bathing in the spring water today
Above the thermal spring sits the modern Termas & Spa complex, home to the first outdoor thermal pools in mainland Portugal, alongside steam rooms, steam baths and sensory showers and an "Ice Fountain" to cool off in. It is very possible to combine a trip to Chaves with a visit to the thermal springs, and I have done it as a trip from Porto, just remember to bring your swim wear. Details of treatments and prices are on their website at www.termasdechaves.com/

If you want to try the water for free, just outside the spa complex in the pretty Jardim do Tabolado is the Buvette de Chaves, the public drinking fountain that has been serving the spring water to locals for generations. The hot water is poured straight from the source, and you will see older locals queuing up with empty bottles or, more endearingly, with sachets of coffee and tea to mix straight into the hot water.

The Buvette de Chaves may not be as idyllic as the idea of a natural spring conjures up, but the water is free and healthy

At the heart of Chaves and occupying the highest point of the city is the Castelo de Chaves. The 14th century keep is all that remains of the original castle, built from local granite under King Dinis I and reinforced again in 1662 during the Restoration Wars with Spain.

Inside the keep is the town's military museum, which spreads across all four floors of the tower. The collection is more substantial than the modest €1 entry fee suggests, with cannon, muskets, swords, flags, uniforms, and regalia covering the whole sweep of Portuguese military history. There is a particularly interesting section on Portugal's involvement in the First World War, and another on the colonial conflicts in Africa during the 1960s and 1970s.

The climb up the narrow internal stairs is short but steep, and at the top you step out onto a flat roof with the best panorama in town: the river below, the red-tiled rooftops of the old centre, and the hills of the Spanish frontier in the distance.

Surrounding the keep is the Jardim do Castelo, a small but beautifully kept garden with benches under the trees and views out over the rooftops to the Tâmega. If you walk around the outside of the keep before leaving, you can still trace sections of the old defensive walls cutting behind the gardens and modern houses.

The mighty castle walls

The town's most celebrated export is the Pastel de Chaves, a half-moon of golden puff pastry filled with seasoned minced veal and onion. Eaten warm from the oven, the pastry shatters into buttery flakes as you bite into it, giving way to a savoury, just-moist filling of slow-cooked veal. They make for a perfect mid-morning snack with a coffee, and you will find them in pastelarias and cafés all over town.

The recipe dates back to 1862, and remarkably it stayed within a single bakery, the Casa do Antigo Pasteleiro, for more than 75 years. Chaves was so geographically isolated in those days that word of the pastry barely travelled beyond the valley, and it was only from the 1940s that other bakeries in the town learned the method. Today the Pastel de Chaves carries Protected Geographical Indication status, meaning that anything sold under the name must be made in the town to the traditional recipe.

My favourite place to eat one is the wonderfully old-fashioned Pastelaria Maria, just off the Praça de Camões, where the pastries come out of the oven in batches throughout the morning. They are at their best within an hour or so of baking, and I would suggest picking one up early in your wanderings.

The Estrada Nacional 2, almost always shortened to N2, is the most famous road in Portugal and runs the full length of the country through its mountainous interior. It begins here in Chaves and ends 739km later on the seafront at Faro, making it the longest road in Portugal. I have driven the entire route over the years, and I think the northern sections are the most interesting, with the road climbing through the granite uplands of Trás-os-Montes before dropping down into the Douro Valley.

For decades it was the main artery linking the north and south of the country, before the expressways drew traffic away and left the N2 to its quieter second life as a touring route. Today it is most popular with bikers and cyclists, who typically take two or three days to drive it and a week or so to ride it.

The 0km marker stands on a small roundabout near the Public Park, just to the east of the historic centre, and is plastered with stickers from the riding clubs and touring groups who have set off from this point. There is also a "Passport" booklet, run by the association of the 35 municipalities along the route, which can be stamped at tourist offices and participating businesses the whole way down. You can pick yours up at the Chaves tourist office on Terreiro da Cavalaria before you set off.
Related articles: A tourist guide to the Nacional 2

My Estrada Nacional 2 with my 0km stamp from Chaves

12km east of Chaves, standing at the top of an 820m hill, is the Castelo de Monforte. The setting of this stone castle provides wonderful views over the Chaves Valley, and the silhouette of its keep can be seen from much of the surrounding countryside.

The site has been occupied since prehistoric times, and the Romans used the hill because it lay close to the road linking Astorga to Braga. Most of what stands today was built between 1273 and 1312, when King Dinis completed the keep and three flanking towers. The castle saw action during the 1383-1385 succession crisis, when the village backed Beatriz against João I, and again during the 17th century Restoration Wars, when a half-bastion was added to take artillery fire.

For nearly six centuries Monforte de Rio Livre was a municipality in its own right, with its own town hall, parish church, and chapel inside the castle walls. When the council was abolished in 1853, the village emptied out, and the castle has been quietly crumbling ever since. There is a local saying, "Se vais a Monforte, leva merenda e capote", if you are going to Monforte, take a picnic and a coat. It is exposed up there, even in summer.

Note: Due to its remote location and few visitors, the castle is often closed, with the door to the central courtyard locked.

The Castelo de Monforte, once an important fort now barely visited….