Lamego

Lamego rises among the hills south of the Douro, its old town shaped by a castle and an ancient bishopric. Sancho I granted it a charter in 1191, and King Denis authorized a market in 1290. Merchants came along the routes connecting the city with other Iberian towns, bringing goods including textiles and spices. Under Manuel I the town received a new charter in 1514. Wine from the Douro became an important source of wealth, and country houses appeared around Lamego in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The crown later established a company and a demarcated region to regulate the trade in wines of the Upper Douro.