Gracinda, a young laundry washer, lives with her godfather, "Uncle" Jacinto, and together they run a family business, doing the laundry for residents of Lisbon in their small village in the outskirts of that city (Canecas). Unfortunately, the business is not going very well, but that changes when...
Vasco is a medical student in Lisbon, supported by his rich aunts, whom he had falsely told he had already graduated. In fact, he devotes himself to a bohemian life, preferring the popular fairs and pretty women, especially Alice, a seamstress from the Castelinhos quarter, which rather upsets her...
Aninhas (Aida Lupo), a paralyzed girl, asks for a miracle from the saint of her devotion, Our Lady of Lourdes, at the chapel of Penha (Guimarães), but her prayer is not heard - She turns her devotion to the Blessed Virgin directly, and joins the multitude that goes on a pilgrimage to the village...
Caleidoscope of documentary-like scenes and re-enacted episodes of a day in the life of a large port town – Lisbon, from the old district around Saint George's Castle down to the docks and the 'Sagres' on the Tagus river, to the new commercial districts.
