about the place
Freixo de Espada à Cinta lies in the far northeast of Portugal, in the District of Bragança, perched above the Douro Internacional and the Spanish border. Its name preserves a legend: a nobleman who, after fighting the Moors, is said to have rested beneath a freixo tree with his sword at his side. The written history begins in 1248, when D. Afonso III granted the first royal charter to the town, confirmed by D. Dinis in 1273. A frontier land, it endured raids and battles over the centuries, yet preserved the Manueline character that still runs through its stones today.
