In the city of Guimarães, northwestern Portugal

 Afonso Henriques, the first king of Portugal, ruled the new kingdom from 1139 to 1185. King Afonso I, as he came to be known, created the kingdom from the condado Portucalense (County of Portugal), a medieval earldom in the north. The area included the towns of Porto, Coimbra, Viseu, Guimarães, and Braga. It was here that Portugal's national identity was forged. For this he is known to the Portuguese as The Conqueror (O Conquistador), The Great (O Grande).

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(in the northwestern Portuguese district of Braga) The city of Guimarães lies at the foot of the Serra de Santa Catarina mountain, northeast of the city of Porto. Founded in the 4th century, Guimarães became the first capital of Portugal in the 12th century. Its landmarks include the 10th-century castle (where Afonso I was born) on a hill overlooking the town, the Romanesque Church of Nossa Senhora da Oliveira, the 14th-century convent and church of São Francisco, and a Dominican convent now housing a notable museum of antiquities. A former convent, Santa Marinha da Costa, on a hill southeast of the city, has been converted into a pousada (special tourist inn). The historic center of the city was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2001. (North of the city is the Citânia de Briteiros, an Iron Age settlement that is now an important archaeological site.)

+ Often referred to as Portugal’s “cradle city,” Alfonso I launched the main thrust of the Reconquista against the Moors from Guimarães. The city's medieval center is quite a maze of labyrinthine lanes and beautiful plazas framed by many 14th-century edifices, while on an adjacent hill stands the 1,000-year-old castle and the massive palace built by the first duke of Bragança in the 15th century.

+ Pictured here is the Padrão do Salado, a medieval monument in Guimarães' Largo da Oliveira square, which owes its name to a centuries-old olive-tree planted on this site. In the square, there are also a number of other fascinating features; on the eastern side is a curious Gothic shrine (in the center of this photo), built in the reign of Afonso IV to commemorate the Battle of Salado, where the Portuguese and Castilian forces together defeated the Moorish army from Granada in 1340. In Largo da Oliveira, just outside the Igreja de Nossa Senhora da Oliveira (Church of Our Lady of The Olive Tree), is the interesting Alberto Sampaio Museum. which was classified as a National Monument in 1910. Many distinguished figures were connected to the Colegiada de Nossa Senhora da Oliveira, such as Pedro Hispano, the doctor and philosopher who was elected Pope under the name of Pope John XXI. Inside the church´s elegant cloister is now housed the Museu Alberto Sampaio, with a remarkable collection of medieval and Renaissance silver pieces, most notably a sumptuous 14th-century silver altarpiece, unique in Portugal, and the tunic worn by João I at the Battle of Aljubarrota.