Fort of São João Baptista Berlengas — fort
Hugo Cadavez from Viseu, Portugal · CC BY 2.0

Fort of São João Baptista Berlengas

Forte de São João Baptista das Berlengas

  • 2 min read
  • 39.411° N 9.510° W

Interesting facts

  • In the 1666 siege, the Spanish ship Covadonga was sunk and two others badly damaged, while the defenders reportedly lost one man killed and four wounded.
  • The garrison finally surrendered in 1666 only after a deserter betrayed it and its ammunition and food had run out; the Spanish carried off nine cannon.
  • Contemporary accounts put the Spanish losses in 1666 at around 400 men on land and 100 more aboard the ships.
  • The Hieronymite monastery that preceded the fort was founded in 1513 with the backing of Queen Leonor, to aid navigation and help shipwrecked sailors.
  • Even before the great siege, the fort's guns drove off an attack by three Turkish vessels in 1655.
  • The fort was disarmed in 1847, ending nearly two centuries of military use on the islet.
  • Portugal classified the fort as a National Monument in March 1938.
  • In the 20th century the fort was partly restored and converted into simple accommodation, so visitors can sleep inside its walls.
  • Its seaward walls are pierced by eleven gun embrasures, and the two-storey main building contains a dozen service rooms.

Why it is worth it

On a rocky islet off Berlenga Grande, joined to the main island by a narrow arched causeway, the Fort of São João Baptista rises straight out of the Atlantic from a base of rose-coloured granite. Seen from the island's cliffs, the squat stone fort, the slender bridge and the surf breaking in the coves around them make one of the most striking images of the Portuguese coast.

The Berlengas are a small archipelago of granite islets lying 10 to 17 kilometres off Peniche. Berlenga Grande, the largest, is only about 1.5 kilometres long, a plateau of pink granite, a rock rare in Europe, broken along its shore into caves, arches, coves and stacks. The islands are a nature reserve for seabirds, and in 2011 UNESCO added the Berlengas to its World Network of Biosphere Reserves.

The fort stands on the site of a monastery that Hieronymite monks founded in the early 16th century, hoping to offer shelter to sailors on this exposed coast. Pirates from North Africa, England and France raided it repeatedly, storms often cut it off from the mainland, and the monks eventually gave up and left. During the Restoration War against Spain, the Portuguese council of war decided that the coast needed stronger defences, and in 1651 a plan was drawn up for a fort on the monastery's ruins; the military engineer Mateus do Couto directed construction. In 1666 a Spanish squadron of fifteen ships attacked it, seeking to intercept Maria Francisca of Savoy, who was sailing to Portugal to marry King Afonso VI. The fort was held by little more than twenty soldiers under António Avelar Pessoa, and the attackers suffered heavy losses before the fighting ended. The damaged fort was rebuilt and strengthened and completed in 1678, according to an inscription over its gate. During the Peninsular War it served as a base for British troops, and later in the Liberal Wars as a staging post for forces loyal to Pedro IV against the fortress of Peniche.

Architecturally the fort is an irregular octagon, elongated north to south. Its two-storey outer walls contain narrow enclosed corridors that run around the perimeter and once served as casemates, pierced on the seaward sides by gun embrasures, while the central block housed the armoury. Paved terraces cover the top.

Getting there

The fort lies on the south-eastern shore of Berlenga Grande, about 10 km off the coast of Peniche, and the island is reached by boat from Peniche. The nearest airport is Cascais (CAT), about 77 km away; Lisbon Humberto Delgado (LIS), the main international airport of the region, is around 78 km to the south-east.

On these lists

The Most Beautiful Places in Central Portugal 12The Most Beautiful Places in Portugal 63The Most Beautiful Castles, Palaces and Fortresses in Portugal 15The Most Impressive Forts 33The Most Beautiful Castles, Palaces and Fortresses 302

From the encyclopaedia

The Fort of São João Baptista das Berlengas, or simply known as the Fort of the Berlengas, is located off western coast of Portugal, on the largest island of the archipelago of the Berlengas, in the municipality of Peniche in Oeste region. The fortification belonged to a group of defensive military structures meant to protect the municipality located on the coast.

Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

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