Castle of Almourol — castle
Daniel Feliciano · CC BY-SA 2.5

Castle of Almourol

Castelo de Almourol

  • Elevation310 m
  • 2 min read
  • 39.462° N 8.384° W

Interesting facts

  • The Moorish name Al-morolan is often interpreted as 'high stone', though the origin and even the spelling of the name have many variants.
  • The 1171 inscription over the gate also records that Gualdim Pais had fought Muslims in Egypt and Syria and lists the other castles he built, including Tomar and Pombal.
  • Under the Templars the castle was the seat of a commandery controlling river trade in olive oil, wheat, pork, fruit and timber with Lisbon.
  • A charter granted in 1170 to local residents suggests a small settlement once existed alongside the castle on one or both banks of the river.
  • The Templars held Almourol as part of their task of settling the land between the Mondego and the Tagus and shielding Coimbra, then Portugal's capital.
  • When the Templar order was suppressed in 1311, the castle passed to its Portuguese successor, the Order of Christ.
  • The great Lisbon earthquake of 1755 damaged the castle, decades before Romantic restorers added uniform battlements to its walls.
  • Since the second half of the 19th century the castle has been in the care of the Portuguese Army's engineering school at nearby Tancos.
  • The lower ward is ringed by nine tall round towers, four on the west and five on the east, and includes a concealed postern gate.
  • A Templar cross pattée is carved above a window of the keep, whose only surviving original elements are the stone corbels that once carried its timber beams.

Why it is worth it

Almourol looks like an image from a book of chivalry: a castle of crenellated walls and round towers crowning a rocky islet in the middle of the Tagus, with the river sliding past on both sides. The granite outcrop rises about 18 metres above the water and measures roughly 310 by 75 metres, and the castle covers its crest, just downstream of the point where the Zêzere joins the Tagus opposite the village of Tancos.

The site is believed to have been fortified long before the Middle Ages; excavations have turned up Roman coins and foundations, and medieval medallions and marble columns have been found nearby. The castle passed to the Portuguese in 1129 and was entrusted to Gualdim Pais, master of the Knights Templar in Portugal, who rebuilt it; an inscription over the main gate dates the work to 1171. It became one of the strongholds of the Templar defensive line along the Tagus during the Reconquista. Its plan has two enclosures: a lower outer ward with walls reinforced by round towers, and a higher inner ward around a three-storey keep, a type of tower the Templars introduced in the west of the Iberian peninsula. When the frontier moved south, the castle lost its purpose and fell into ruin. Romantic writers of the nineteenth century rediscovered it; it was declared a National Monument in 1910 and, in the 1940s and 1950s, restored and adapted as an official residence of the Portuguese state, gaining many of its present battlements and turrets in the process.

Almourol has long been surrounded by stories. In the sixteenth-century romance Palmeirim de Inglaterra, the castle is the home of the giant Almourol, who guards the beautiful princess Miraguarda. A local legend tells of a cruel knight, Dom Ramiro, whose daughter ran away with a Moorish captive; on St John's Night, local tradition holds, the lovers can be seen embracing on top of the keep while the knight kneels at their feet begging forgiveness.

Getting there

The castle stands in the Tagus in the parish of Praia do Ribatejo, about 4 km from Vila Nova da Barquinha and about 7 km from the railway junction town of Entroncamento; it is reached by a short boat crossing. Lisbon Humberto Delgado Airport (LIS) is about 100 km away.

Plan your visit

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Nearby places

On these lists

The Most Beautiful Places in the Alentejo 6The Most Beautiful Places in Portugal 63The Most Beautiful Castles, Palaces and Fortresses in Portugal 15The Most Beautiful Castles 94The Most Beautiful Castles, Palaces and Fortresses 302

From the encyclopaedia

The Castle of Almourol is a medieval castle atop the islet of Almourol in the middle of the Tagus River, located in the civil parish of Praia do Ribatejo, 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) from the municipal seat of Vila Nova da Barquinha, in Portugal's Oeste e Vale do Tejo region. The castle was part of the defensive line controlled by the Knights Templar, and a stronghold used during the Portuguese Reconquista.

Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

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