Moon in Porto Today — Full Moon

Moon in Porto — Did You Know?

• ·Porto's azulejo (blue tile) tradition includes many church and chapel facades depicting the moon and the Virgin Mary in the lunisolar Catholic iconography; the Santuário de Bom Jesus do Monte near Braga (easily visible from Porto's hills on clear days) holds its most attended pilgrimage on the September full moon weekend — a Marian festival tied to the lunar calendar that draws 500,000 people and is the largest in the Iberian Peninsula.
• ·Porto sits on the steep north bank of the Douro River where it enters the Atlantic Ocean, with the river making a sharp bend before reaching the sea; from the iron Dom Luís I bridge — the city's iconic double-deck arch bridge — the full moon in winter rises over the river valley to the east and its reflection stretches along the Douro toward the Atlantic horizon, while the illuminated wine lodges (caves) of Vila Nova de Gaia on the south bank frame the scene below.
• ·At latitude 41.2° N, Porto lies on the Atlantic coast slightly north of Lisbon; in winter the full moon reaches a maximum altitude of approximately 72° in the southern sky, crossing above the Serra do Marão mountains visible on the eastern horizon and clearing the hilltop towers of the Clérigos church before descending toward the Atlantic — a sky arc that Porto's fado-influenced poets have mapped in verse for three centuries.