XI Cultural Week Melres e Medas

The Cultural Week of Melres e Medas is a celebration of the history and traditions of the União das freguesias de Melres e Medas, in the municipality of Gondomar, and over several days it brings the community together around music, dance, sport and local gastronomy. It is a gathering that gives voice to the artists and people of these lands, celebrating what has united them since the two parishes came together to form a single union. The festival is also connected to the devotion to Our Lady of the Assumption, the patron saint venerated here, at a time when cultural life and religious life intersect in a natural way. It is this invocation of Mary that gives meaning to a great part of the celebrations and continues to mark the calendar and identity of the community.

Nestled along the Douro, the Parish Union of Melres e Medas, in the municipality of Gondomar, is a riverside land through and through, where the great river is a presence, a companion and the thread that stitches together the landscape and the lives of its people. Two localities with a strong historical character, proud of their roots and generous to those who arrive, preserving a past that can be read in the stones and pathways. Among the heritage highlights are the Church of Our Lady of the Assumption and the Chapel dos Passos, places of faith and memory to be discovered at leisure. And there is the table, which speaks the language of the river: shad and lamprey, seasonal delicacies prepared with the knowledge of the elders. A corner of Gondomar that deserves to be known slowly.