Live unique experiences
Using augmented reality, the app offers cultural content in Portuguese, English, and Spanish that surprises visitors with how it appears along a route featuring 35 points of interest between Largo do Calvário and Praça do Município.
Next to the Tourist Office, you’ll find a digital panel with guidance on the content. You can follow the suggested route or customise your journey depending on the time you have. Then, allow yourself to be amazed by the app’s multisensory exploration of the spaces and streets, including 360° virtual tours of the Chapel of Santa Cruz or Calvário, the Church of Santa Maria Maior, and the House of the Morgadas. Along the way, you may encounter historical characters such as King Dinis or Pêro da Covilhã, factory workers, paperboys, or UBI students, who will tell you stories from Covilhã’s past.
The app is free to use and available to everyone via download on their smartphone.
Covilhã, as a significant industrial hub, has always had a bourgeoisie receptive to new trends, including Art Nouveau, which influenced both interior decoration and local architecture. Many carpentry workshops produced furniture with motifs such as sunflowers and foliage carved into doors and drawers.
In architecture, Art Nouveau appears in oval frame openings, tile decorations, and ironwork on balconies and gates. Key examples include Palacete Jardim, Club União, Colégio Moderno, and the Banco Comercial Português agency. Additionally, decorative details are scattered throughout the city, such as stained glass, eaves, and wrought iron railings.
The “Colégio das Freiras” features some of the earliest elements of this new style, albeit transitional ones, such as geometric curves in the French windows and ceramic elements on the parapet. Built in the late 19th or early 20th century by Commander Campos Melo, it stands out for its grand, light-filled openings.
The hygienist ideals of the time promoted the use of durable and easy-to-clean materials like tiles, ceramic mosaics, coloured or hammered glass. Although Art Nouveau did not have a strong decorative impact in Covilhã, it significantly influenced the structural elements of the city’s architecture.
Covilhã features a significant number of urban art installations, mostly located in the city’s historic centre. Aiming to revitalise neglected areas and promote forgotten spaces, the Urban Art Route is a true open-air “museum”, paying tribute to Covilhã’s glorious past as one of the country’s key wool production centres.
WOOL – Covilhã Urban Art Festival, launched in 2011, was the first event of its kind in inland Portugal.
“WOOL surprises with the variety of contemporary artistic expressions it brings to Covilhã, transforming the city and how local culture is perceived. The festival adopts the name of the local industry – wool. As an ephemeral art form – mural painting, graffiti, illustration, visual intervention – WOOL has shown resilience and commitment through a decade of continuous artistic contribution, influencing perceptions of the urban and heritage environment.”
(From the book WOOL | Covilhã Arte Urbana 2011–2021)
Guided tours
Covilhã’s municipality, particularly its historic centre, holds a religious heritage of great beauty and historical value, which deserves to be known by both locals and visitors.
The “Covilhã Church Route” aims to promote and enhance this religious-historic heritage, contributing to the development of cultural and religious tourism. The route includes 11 churches, all with set opening hours and accessible for visits that offer deeper insight into their history. A visit to the Museum of Sacred Art is also recommended.
Covilhã lies along a significant pilgrimage route used by travellers coming from the south and from Castile towards Guarda and Trancoso, linking with the “Portuguese Way” or the “Via de la Plata”. The Way of St James in Covilhã covers about 13 km, from Ferro (Pedra do Adufe) to Peraboa (Chapel of the Holy Spirit). It is a medium-difficulty, well-marked and safe path.
Pilgrims can begin their journey here and receive the Pilgrim’s Credential, provided they complete at least 100 km on foot to Santiago de Compostela.
The Pilgrims’ Hostel, in Ferro, has been open since May 2021 and offers 7 beds per night, available by reservation: (+351) 964 302 817 (Calls to national mobile network)
Cost: €7 per night (Pilgrim’s Credential required)
Facilities: beds, hot showers, communal areas, and kitchen.
It is part of the Via Portugal Nascente, starting in Tavira, and is being certified to ensure authenticity and safety.
The Pilgrim’s Credential is essential for accessing most hostels and obtaining the Compostela, the official certificate of pilgrimage. Since 2014, it can also certify the distance travelled. The Ferro hostel holds the “Jacobean Hospitality” seal from the Portuguese Federation of the Way of St James.
Since the end of the Roman Empire, Jewish communities were present in what would become Portugal, organised into Jewish quarters. Covilhã’s Jewish community, from the 12th to early 20th century, was the largest and most influential in the Serra da Estrela region and one of the most important in the country. They worked in trade, craftsmanship, and agriculture, boosting the wool industry.
In the 15th century, the city had two Jewish quarters: one inside the walls near Portas do Sol, and another outside, covering Rua do Ginásio and Rua das Flores. This latter area is known for narrow streets, tall buildings, and facades with Jewish architectural features, such as asymmetrical windows, varied doorway sizes, and chamfered lintels.
Three houses stand out with Manueline windows decorated with nautical motifs—two on Rua das Flores and one on Rua do Ginásio Clube. The community also influenced the founding of textile factories, such as the Real Fábrica dos Panos, Fábrica Campos Melo, and Fábrica Velha.
One of these Manueline windows was restored and can be seen behind the Covilhã City Hall.
The “Discover Covilhã” programme offers free guided tours of the city’s historic zones for groups of 10 or more. Organised by the Museum of Sacred Art, the tours aim to promote and highlight the city’s built heritage, traditions, and local flavours.
Covilhã is a city rich in history. King Sancho granted its first charter in 1186, making it the head of a vast territory that later became the Beira Baixa province. It is famous for its wool production and its prominent historical figures such as Pêro da Covilhã, the Faleiro brothers (Francisco and Ruy), José Vizinho, Frei Heitor Pinto, Eduardo Malta, Costa Camelo, and António Alçada Baptista.
Tours must be booked 48 hours in advance and are tailored to the group’s interests, with possible itineraries including:
• Medieval Covilhã
• Church Route
• General Historic Centre Tour
• Blue and White Route (tiles)
• In Search of Lost Symbols
Info & bookings:
Under the theme “Covilhã – The Factory City”, three urban walking routes are proposed. These circular and complementary trails are all centred around the Wool Museum of the University of Beira Interior.
These routes aim to revisit the most significant sites linked to Covilhã’s wool industry, offering insight not only into museum spaces dedicated to preserving industrial heritage—such as the museum nucleus of the Royal Cloth Factory, a state-run manufacture founded in 1764 by the Marquis of Pombal, and the Royal Veiga Factory, dating back to 1784, both part of the Wool Museum—but also into the broader industrial landscape dispersed throughout the city.
Along the way, visitors can observe a wide range of industrial heritage, including factory buildings, drying grounds and open-air looms, chimneys, machinery, manor houses, workers’ quarters, and other supporting infrastructures that reflect the city’s rich textile legacy.
The Ribeira da Goldra Route begins at the building of the former José Mendes Veiga company (Royal Veiga Factory), now home to the Wool Museum of the University of Beira Interior. The Royal Veiga Factory complex is composed of three granite buildings located beside the Ribeira da Goldra. It was once the headquarters of a historic wool company, founded in 1784 by José Mendes Veiga, originating from a dyeing workshop.
The Ribeira da Carpinteira Route starts at the Royal Cloth Factory nucleus of the Wool Museum of the University of Beira Interior. In this very place, where weaving and finishing workshops already existed by the mid-18th century, the second major state-run manufactory was established. It was designed to serve as a model factory—centralising the various stages of production—and as a driver of the local textile industry’s development.
The proposed itinerary through the Historic Centre initially overlaps with the Ribeira da Carpinteira route, running from the Royal Cloth Factory nucleus of the Wool Museum to the junction of Rua Marquês d’Ávila e Bolama and Rua do Peso da Lã.
