Rua de Belomonte
the history of our street
It was torn up by the Dominican friars and began to appear with its current name in 16th century.
It may have been a cross that existed just before you reached Largo de São João Novo, O Padrão de Belmonte, that gave it its name, which curiously has remained to this day.
Although it is not very long, the street that goes up and then down, holds in itself some treasures such as the Escovaria de Belomonteone of the oldest businesses in the city, and probably unique in the Iberian Peninsula.
We can also see several houses from the 17th and 18th centuries, being the Pacheco Pereira's the most famous, as it represents one of the best examples of Porto's civil architecture from the 18th century.
The building once hosted one of the centers of the Artistic School of the Porto, right next to the B28 Apartments.
Behind the Rua de Belomonte
in At the beginning of Rua de Belomonte, still near Largo de S. Domingos, the long Vitória staircase rises.
It's a tough climb, but it's one of the quickest and most direct links between the lower and upper parts of the hill of Vitória.
It is also from these stairs that you can contemplate one of the most beautiful panoramic views of the medieval Porto . But this is also one of the areas where the Jewish presence in the city has lasted to the present day.
In fact, the toponymy safeguards this historical memory and ethnic heritage of people, regions and cultures that the city is also made of.
And Porto was also home, for centuries, to an extremely important community of Jews who, since the 14th century, were forbidden to live on in morro da Sé and, for this reason, were moved to morro do Olival.
Victoria Stairs
Thus was born the Jewish quarter of Porto, in on top of which the new synagogue was built. in he end of the 15th century, the Jews were definitively expelled from the city and the country.
But, symptomatically, the stairs that led to the synagogue through the Jewish quarter, the renamed Escadas da Vitória, are still called Escadas da "Esnoga".
Source: Joel Cleto, in obradouro blog
After reading about our Street, you will also learn the story of how B28 Apartments became our home.
