This was a day of nice surprises, it seems. When arriving at Sangalhos to visit a museum, we noticed a Velodrome which had another museum, this one about bikes, attached. As we had enough time, we went there. The museum can only be visited with a guide, and we came at the wrong time, but the very friendly concierge asked us if we would like to see the Velodrome!
We had the luck, that one of the Portuguese Olympic gold medal winners from Paris in 2024, Iuri Leitão, was just training at the ring, and we could watch him and a colleague following their trainer on the electric bike.
We learned that many European teams come here for training, also the Austrians and the Dutch. It looked like a very nice and modern facility. But then it was time to visit an Underground Museum!
I can’t tell you how we found out about this museum, but the pictures and comments on Google were so promising, that we didn’t want to miss it. And we were right! It was the most amazing experience!
We had booked a visit online and went on a guided tour through the cellars of a winery, which is mostly used to exhibit the extensive collection of the owner José Manuel Rodrigues Berardo, an interesting personality.
Each of the 8 different parts were most fascinating. It started with a cemetery of urns, excavated in Niger, next were masks from different African countries, sculptures from Zimbabwe, minerals mostly from Brazil, incredible fossils, tile work and ceramics from Portugal, ceramics from China, and finally artwork from India.
As Aliança is a big winery, barrels of red wine and brandy as well as bottles of spumante are stocked in the cellar as well. Our tour ended with a wine tasting of sparkling wines.
We were fascinated by the exhibited collections, a rare find to see so many impressive objects. We can highly recommend a visit to this winery! Continuing our way to Coimbra, there are still some other places to see on the way. More next!