Castle of Marvão

Interesting facts

According to legend, Castilian troops led by two traitors once crept up on the castle at night, but fled when a woman's voice cried 'To arms!' in the dark.

That voice was attributed to Our Lady of the Star, whose image, legend says, a shepherd found among the rocks by following a star, leading to a Franciscan convent nearby.

In 1378 King Ferdinand I made Marvão a refuge where fugitives from justice could settle, a common way of populating dangerous frontier towns.

Some historians identify the hilltop with Medobriga, a town taken by Julius Caesar's forces during his conflict with Pompey in the 1st century BC.

Ibn Marwan, whose name the town carries, is also regarded as the founder of the Spanish city of Badajoz; his great-grandson submitted to Abd al-Rahman III in 929.

The town's official title is the 'Very Noble and Ever Loyal Town of Marvão'.

Rainwater for the great cistern was gathered in a reservoir above the vault and fed into the chamber through three openings.

In the late 17th century the old castle was turned into the citadel of a bastioned fortress, with gun platforms designed for low, grazing fire.

The Menhir of Meada, about 7 metres tall and considered the largest in the Iberian Peninsula, stands within sight of the northern tip of Marvão's rock.

José Saramago wrote that from Marvão one can see the whole land, imagining visitors in the keep murmuring at how great the world is.

Why it is worth it

The Castle of Marvão crowns a quartzite crag of the Serra de São Mamede, its keep standing at about 867 metres above sea level on the edge of Portugal's border with Spain. From its walls the land drops away on almost every side, which is exactly why the site was fortified for so long: whoever held this rock watched over the route that had linked Santarém with Cáceres since Roman times. The castle and the walled village beneath it form a single defensive whole, wrapped in curtain walls that follow the contours of the cliff.

The name of the place is traditionally traced to Ibn Marwan, a 9th-century Muwallad rebel who built a power base across much of what is now Portugal and is credited with fortifying the hilltop around 876–877. Christian forces under Afonso I took the area from Muslim rule in the 1160s; Sancho II granted Marvão its first charter in 1226, and in 1271 it passed to the Hospitaller Order, whose Maltese crosses still appear on houses in the village. Most of the castle seen today post-dates 1299, when King Dinis took the town and set about enlarging it and its keep. Later centuries brought it back into service again and again: during the war that restored Portuguese independence from Spain the walls were strengthened between 1640 and 1662, with repairs directed by the engineer Luís Serrão Pimentel; Spanish troops attacked in 1641 and 1648, held the town in 1704–1705 and assaulted it again in 1772; and in December 1833, during the Liberal Wars, it fell to the Liberal side.

Architecturally, the castle shows the influence of crusader military design: a rectangular keep with a vaulted interior and a raised entrance, turrets, high-placed arrow slits, crenellated battlements and a triple gateway arranged to trap attackers in killing zones. Two walled courtyards gave space for villagers and livestock to shelter in times of siege. One of its most striking features is a great rain-fed cistern, a vaulted chamber carried on ten stone ribs, built to let the garrison hold out without a spring. In the valley nearby lie the remains of the Roman city of Ammaia, which between the 1st and 5th centuries housed several thousand people.

Getting there

Marvão lies about 12 km from Portalegre, the district capital. The nearest airport is Badajoz Airport (BJZ) across the Spanish border, about 74 km away by straight line.

Castle of Marvão

Interesting facts

Why it is worth it

Getting there

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