The Pilgrimage Festival of Saint Matthew takes place in the parish of Gonça, in the municipality of Guimarães, and is believed to have begun in 1751, making it a tradition with centuries of continuity in this land. Over time, it has endured as a celebration in honour of the patron saint, Saint Matthew, uniting the community around their faith and collective memory.
As is characteristic of pilgrimage festivals, this is above all a journey of devotion, with a pilgrimage to the chapel and moments of religious contemplation. Processions mark the days of festivities, alongside celebrations and gatherings that bring together the inhabitants of Gonça and the wider region, thus combining the sacred and the communal.
The Pilgrimage Festival of Saint Matthew is part of the vast heritage of religious and cultural traditions of Guimarães, where pilgrimage festivals form part of the history and identity of its people. It is this bond between devotion to the saint and the life of the community that continues to give meaning to the festival, year after year.
Gonça is a rural parish in the interior of Guimarães, with open fields and scattered houses, whose written history goes back to the famous Inquirições of 1220. A land of farmers, it lives to the unhurried rhythm of work in the fields, well-tended vegetable gardens and know-how handed down from parents to children. Here tradition lives on in the Rusga de São Miguel, a group that carries the soul of the land through music, song and dance, while at the table the rich cooking of Guimarães reigns, from roast kid to the curious arroz de pica-no-chão. Just a short way off stands Guimarães, the birthplace of Portugal, whose cultural and historical horizon Gonça breathes and shares.
