Caldelas is situated in the heart of Minho, in the municipality of Amares, between Braga and Gerês. Surrounded by breathtaking scenery, it is the ideal destination to escape the stress of everyday life and recharge your batteries with the comfort and well-being that a spa experience can offer.
The name of Caldelas (Caldellas in the old spelling), is all of Latin origin and its meaning is directly related to the mineral-medicinal springs. Thus, etymologically, the word “Calldelas” is a derivative of the Latin word “calda” (meaning hot water) with the diminutive suffix “ella” also Latin (which adds the idea of smallness), the plural being used to refer to two springs. Thus “Caldellas” literally means “small warm waters”, and the name of the village is naturally linked to the period of Romanization mentioned above, with written records of this name dating back to the 13th century. Caldelas, with just one l, is the modern spelling, adopted in the first quarter of this century.
As a curiosity, here is a naive and erroneous legend, still told today, about the name Caldelas, certainly caused by a spelling mistake made in the 16th century. Thus, in a document dated 1528, about rights owed to the archbishop of Braga, the name of the village appears with the spelling of Qualdellas, more precisely Santiago de Qualdellas. From this spelling someone understood that the word was composed of the juxtaposition of “Qual-dellas”, and the people, always with their beloved imagination, immediately found a meaning for this name, creating the legend that we will now briefly describe: one day a stranger, who was looking for relief from the miraculous waters, when he arrived near the springs, came across the existence of not one, but two springs (which still exist today) and naturally asked someone who was on the spot, “Which one should I drink from?”. However, this legend, as mentioned above, and the name Qualdellas, certainly derive from an error by a less rigorous scribe, who swapped the C for Qu, since the spelling Caldellas is recorded in several documents from the three centuries before the first appearance of the spelling Qualdellas. As for the names that identified the mineral-medicinal waters, we can chronologically refer to Caldellas, Caldas do Alvito (a small stream that passes by the site), Caldas de Rendufe, Caldas de Caldelas, Poços e Banhos and finally, Termas de Caldelas, from Roman times to the present day.
Reabertura das Termas de Caldelas pela entidade instituidora do ISAVE.
Concurso de Concessão
A exploração romana destas águas é testemunhada por duas lápides consagradas às ninfas, actualmente expostas nos jardins do Grande Hotel da Bela Vista, encontradas quando da construção do primeiro balneário em 1803.
Construção dos quatro poços em pedra e instalação da chamada da “Bica de Fora”- primeiro balneário
As águas mínero-medicinais de Caldelas começaram a ser administradas pelos frades do Mosteiro de Rendufe, até 1834, ano da extinção das ordens religiosas.
Frei Cristóvão dos Reis, administrador da botica do Convento do Carmo em Braga, publica em Lisboa uma obra intitulada “Reflexões Metódico-Botânicas (e outras notícias de águas minerais)”, onde o autor faz várias considerações sobre as duas nascentes termais, a que chamou Caldas do Albito, na freguesia de Caldelas
