Learn Hardcore Portuguese (Portugal): De manhã, caminhamos até à muralha para ver a cidade. - In the morning, we walk to the city wall to see the city.

De manhã ≈ in the morning (as a general time of day, repeated habit, or broad reference).
- De manhã, caminhamos… = In the morning, we (usually) walk…
Na manhã literally means in the morning but refers to a specific, identified morning:
- Na manhã de terça-feira, caminhámos até à muralha.
  On Tuesday morning, we walked to the wall.
Pela manhã is understood, but:
- It is more common in Brazilian Portuguese than in Portugal.
- In European Portuguese, it can sound more formal/literary or simply less usual in everyday speech.
- A European speaker would normally just say de manhã.

So in natural European Portuguese, De manhã, caminhamos… is exactly what you want for a general, habitual action.

What tense is caminhamos here? Does it mean “we walk” or “we walked”?

In European Portuguese spelling, caminhamos (without an accent) is:

Present tense, 1st person plural: “we walk / we are walking”.

The past simple (pretérito perfeito) form would be:

caminhámos (with an acute accent on á) = “we walked”.

So, strictly according to standard European spelling:

De manhã, caminhamos… → In the morning, we (usually) walk… (present, habitual).
De manhã, caminhámos… → In the morning, we walked… (past, one specific time).

In speech, both forms sound the same; only the written accent tells you which tense it is. In informal writing, some native speakers forget or ignore the accent, which can create ambiguity, but in careful/standard writing the difference is:

caminhamos = present
caminhámos = past

In your sentence as written (caminhamos), the meaning is present habitual.

Why use caminhar here and not andar or ir a pé?

All three can involve walking, but they have different tendencies:

caminhar = to walk, often with a slight sense of purposeful walking or going for a walk.
- De manhã, caminhamos até à muralha…
  In the morning, we walk to the wall… (sounds quite natural.)
andar a pé = to go on foot, stressing the means of transport.
- De manhã, vamos a pé até à muralha.
  In the morning, we go on foot to the wall.
andar by itself is broader: to walk, go around, move, be going somewhere, etc.
- Andamos pela cidade = we walk around the city / we go around the city.

In this context, caminhar is a good choice because it clearly indicates walking as the mode of moving there and sounds natural and a bit more “deliberate” than just andar.

Why is there a comma after De manhã?

De manhã is a fronted time expression (“in the morning”) placed at the beginning of the sentence. In Portuguese, when you put an adverbial phrase (time, place, manner, etc.) at the start for emphasis or structure, it is very common and stylistically preferred to follow it with a comma:

De manhã, caminhamos até à muralha…
À tarde, estudamos.
Em casa, falo sempre português.

You could technically omit the comma in some very short sentences, but in standard writing, keeping the comma after such an initial time phrase is clearer and more natural.

What does até add to the meaning in caminhamos até à muralha? Could we just say caminhamos à muralha?

Até means “as far as / up to”, and with verbs of movement it often expresses reaching a limit or destination:

caminhar até à muralha = to walk as far as / up to the wall (and reach it).

Without até, you might see:

fui à muralha = I went to the wall.
caminhei à muralha = I walked to the wall.

These are not wrong, but:

With caminhar, caminhar até… is much more usual and idiomatic when you want to talk about walking to a specific point.
caminhar à muralha is possible, but in everyday speech caminhar até à muralha sounds more natural.

So até emphasizes the idea of going all the way up to that place as a destination/limit.

Why is it até à muralha with a grave accent (à) and not just até a muralha?

This touches on crasis (the merging of two a’s).

In Portuguese, when the preposition a
- the definite article a combine, they form à (with grave accent):
- a (prep.) + a (art.) = à
- a (prep.) + as (art.) = às
- Vou à cidade. = I go to the city.
With até, things are a bit controversial in grammar books:
- Some grammars say: não há crase depois de até (no contraction), so até a muralha.
- In European Portuguese, however, it is very common and widely accepted in practice to write:
  - até à muralha
  - até à cidade
  - até às três horas

So in Portugal, you will very often see and hear até à muralha, and it is felt as natural and standard in everyday use.

In short:

até à muralha = very common, natural EP form (as in your sentence).
até a muralha = also found, especially in more prescriptive styles.

For you as a learner of Portuguese from Portugal, até à muralha is perfectly normal.

What exactly does muralha mean? How is it different from muro or parede?

These words all involve “walls” but are used differently:

muralha
- A large, defensive wall, typically around a city, castle, or fortress.
- Think city walls, fortification walls.
- a muralha de uma cidade antiga = the wall(s) surrounding an old city.
muro
- A regular external wall, usually outdoors: a garden wall, property wall, boundary wall.
- o muro do jardim = the garden wall.
parede
- An internal or general vertical wall/surface, e.g. inside a building or a room, or just any side wall.
- a parede da sala = the living-room wall.

In your sentence, since we are going to a high place to see the city, muralha is appropriate: the idea is likely of old city walls overlooking the city.

Why is it para ver a cidade? Could we also say a ver a cidade or por ver a cidade?

Here, para ver a cidade expresses purpose: “in order to see the city”.

para + infinitive is the standard way to express purpose:
- Estudamos português para falar melhor.
  We study Portuguese in order to speak better.
- Caminhamos até à muralha para ver a cidade.
  We walk to the wall to see the city.

Alternatives:

a ver a cidade
- estar a ver = “to be seeing / looking at” (progressive aspect).
- Caminhamos à muralha a ver a cidade would sound odd; it suggests “we walk to the wall while seeing the city” and is not how you express purpose.
por ver a cidade
- por with infinitive here does not naturally express purpose.
- It can appear in other senses (reason, cause, by doing X), but not for a simple “in order to” meaning.

So, for “in order to see the city”, para ver a cidade is the correct and natural choice.

Could/should we say para vermos a cidade instead of para ver a cidade?

Both are grammatically correct, but there is a nuance:

para ver a cidade
- Infinitive without a personal ending.
- The subject is understood from context (here, “we”).
- Neutral, very common.
para vermos a cidade
- Personal infinitive, marked for “we” (-mos ending).
- Makes the subject explicitly clear: it’s we who are going to see the city.
- Often used when:
  - you want to emphasize the subject, or
  - there could be ambiguity about who is doing the action.

In your sentence, there’s no ambiguity (the “we” of caminhamos is the same “we” who will see the city), so both are acceptable:

De manhã, caminhamos até à muralha para ver a cidade.
De manhã, caminhamos até à muralha para vermos a cidade.

In European Portuguese, the personal infinitive (vermos) is used quite a lot, but the shorter para ver is also normal. In everyday speech/writing, many speakers would choose the simpler para ver a cidade here.

Why is it ver a cidade with the article (a cidade) and not just ver cidade?

Portuguese uses the definite article more frequently than English does.

a cidade = “the city”, referring to a specific, identifiable city:
- usually the city where you are, or which is known from context.

Saying ver cidade without the article sounds strange here; it would be more like:

ver cidade = see city (in general), which is not natural in this context.

Some examples:

Gosto de ver a cidade do alto da muralha.
I like to see the city from the top of the wall.
Visitámos a cidade.
We visited the city.

So a cidade is the normal form; dropping the article would not be idiomatic here.

Can we change the word order? For example: Caminhamos de manhã até à muralha para ver a cidade. Does that change the meaning?

You can change the word order; the basic meaning stays the same, but the emphasis shifts slightly.

Possible variants:

De manhã, caminhamos até à muralha para ver a cidade.
- Time phrase De manhã is fronted → emphasizes when you do it.
Caminhamos de manhã até à muralha para ver a cidade.
- More neutral; time phrase is “in the middle”, still clear, slightly more “flat” in rhythm.
Caminhamos até à muralha de manhã para ver a cidade.
- Also possible; de manhã is closer to the verb but the sentence is still natural.

All three are understandable, but:

Putting De manhã first (with a comma) is a very common, natural way in Portuguese to highlight the time frame before telling what you do.

So yes, you can reorder the elements, but the original sentence is already very idiomatic.

How do you pronounce manhã, caminhamos, muralha and cidade in European Portuguese?

Here are approximate guidelines with English-like hints:

manhã
- Stressed on nhã.
- nh = like ny in canyon.
- ã = nasal vowel, similar to the an in French “sans”.
- Roughly: mah-NYAH (with a nasal quality on the last syllable).
caminhamos
- Syllables: ca-mi-nha-mos.
- Stress on -nha-: ca-mi-NHA-mos.
- nh again like ny in canyon.
- Final -os in European Portuguese is often like a weak -ush/-us.
- Roughly: kah-mee-NYAH-mush (EP).
muralha
- Syllables: mu-ra-lha.
- Stress on -ra-: mu-RA-lha.
- lh = similar to the lli in million or Italian gli.
- Roughly: moo-RA-lya.
cidade
- Syllables: ci-da-de.
- Stress on -da-: ci-DA-de.
- Initial ci = see.
- Final -de in EP is often like a soft -d(ɨ), something like -d with a schwa.
- Roughly: see-DA-d(ɨ).

These are approximations, but they should help you get close to the European Portuguese sound.

Does De manhã, caminhamos… sound like a one-time event or a regular habit?

With caminhamos (present tense) and de manhã, the default interpretation is habitual:

De manhã, caminhamos até à muralha para ver a cidade.
= In the mornings, we (normally / usually) walk to the wall to see the city.

If you wanted to clearly describe one specific occasion in the past, you would normally use the past tense:

De manhã, caminhámos até à muralha para ver a cidade.
= In the morning, we walked to the wall to see the city (on that day).

So, as written, the sentence sounds like a regular routine rather than a single event.