The town received its charter in 1125 from the first queen of Portugal, Teresa de Leão in 1125, which makes it the oldest chartered town (‘vila’ in Portuguese) in Portugal. The statue that commemorates the issuance of the town charter by Dona Teresa is the work of sculptor Luis Valadares and was inaugurated on March 4, 2002. Unlike the statues of her son, Afonso Henriques, that extol him as the first king of Portugal, this statue deploys verses from the early twentieth-century Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa that describe her as “Mãe de Reis” (the mother of kings) e Avó de Impérios” (the grandmother of empires). The front of the statue base includes a tribute to the founding charter of 1125: “E fez vila o lugar de Ponte” [and she established a town in the settlement known as Ponte].
Ponte de Lima was historically significant as a Roman settlement on the road from Braga to Santiago de Compostela and Lugo. Today, it is a significant stop on the Central Portuguese branch of the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route.
