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 ambitious father, tailor Caetano, who is familiar with Vasco's debts. After failing yet another final exam, he is surprised by his aunts' announcement that they will visit him in Lisbon to see his practice.

Gracinda is a young laundress who works with Uncle Jacinto, but life hasn't been going well for them. Therefore, she decides to go to the city to convince Chico, her cousin with whom she has fallen in love, to return to the village to help on the business...

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 where, ten years before, the Virgin Mary is said to have appeared to three child sheepherders.

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.