Aljezur Castle is a small and mostly ruined castle to visit, on a hilltop in southern Portugal. There is most of the outer wall left and parts of a couple of towers and it still commands extensive views over the valley.
Visiting Aljezur Castle
After we’d walked up the steep hill we found a car park at the top but to be fair, it was a pleasant walk. There are a few information boards but entrance is obviously free and most of what you get is views.
My Experience
Our visit to Aljezur Castle was as part of a ten day road trip through southern Portugal, detailed on my blog here. We had previously visited the castles at Mourao, Portel, Beja and Alentijo.
The castle of Aljezur was a Muslim bastion but was finally captured in the thirteenth century and then reinforced to defend against north African slaving raids. Yes, the slave trade wasn’t just a single long instance of whites enslaving blacks – North Africans and Arabs had been enslaving Europeans and black Africans for centuries on an industrial scale.
The walk to the castle was damned hard work up a very steep road and then finally through a delightfully fragrant eucalyptus forest. There isn’t much left of the castle, half an outer wall and a couple of towers but the views were amazing, over the whole village, river basin and surrounding hills.
The towers seemed to be solid constructions rather than having rooms in them and you couldn’t go in any of them. They seemed to have been designed as viewpoints rather than fighting platforms.
We walked down from the castle by a different route, through the old historical centre of the village but there wasn’t much left as the earthquake that destroyed Lisbon also damaged most of the buildings in Aljezur. At least it wasn’t as steep though and there were plenty of gardens with succulent plants in for Deb to see.
Aljezur Castle Photo Gallery
The highlight of the castle! 
Walls and view 
Centre of the castle 
That big tower doesn’t look as impressive from the inside 
The castle on the hill above 
Walking up the steep streets 
Panoramic of the castle 
Walking down through the old town 
Walking down through the old town
History
The site of the castle was occupied, successively and uninterrupted by Lusitanians, who constructed a castro to oversee their lands, before being pushed aside by the Romans, who constructed a lookout.[3] By the 7th-8th century, the Visigoths also used the space as a sentry to safeguard their territory.
By the beginning of the 10th century, a small town was founded by Arabs, who reformulated their defences, constructing various dependencies within and outside the walls. Of these constructions, only the cistern in the castle survives their period of occupation. The castle was part of the Moorish defensive line of Silves, during the Almohad Caliphate and era of the Iberian taifas.
In 1242 (or 1246), Aljezur was conquered by knights loyal to Paio Peres Correia. As legend suggests, the conquest of the castle aided by a Moorish woman, who betrayed her fellow countrymen and delivered the citadel into the hands of the knights The Lenda of Maira Aires, also suggests that the castle was taken by Paio Correia on 24 June, on the feast day of the village’s patron saint. Its occupation did not result in the partial or total destruction of the castle, although alterations to the fortress occurred in the first decades of its Christian occupation.
Following the 1267 Treaty of Badajoz, the castle and other fortresses along the Algarve were transferred into the dominion of the King Afonso III of Portugalby Alfonso X of Castile. King Denis of Portugal issued a foral (charter) to the region of Aljezur on 12 November 1280, while staying in Estremoz. Thirty years later, the monarch bartered away the Castle of Aljezur and other lands for the town of Almada (1 December 1297).
In 1448, during a visitation by members of the Order of Santiago to the town of Aljezur, they referred to the castle being in a state of abandon, at the same time prohibiting the removal of rock and masonry from the site for other constructions. Further, the report mentioned directions by the Order to reconstruct the walls and the cleaning of the cistern.
On 20 August 1504, King Manuel of Portugal reissued a foral from Lisbon, where he conferred the title of honrada (honoured) to the charter (seen as a way to attract new settlers to the region).
The 1755 Lisbon earthquake caused the destruction of all the homes in the town, and demolishing most of the castle, saving only the tribune and the Presbytery in the church. As a result of the 1940-1941 commemorations of the Portuguese centenary, the walls was partially reconstructed.
On 19 September 1972, a decision by the JNE considered future plans to convert the castle into a hotel should only be considered if the volume of remodelling required did not harm the interior of the monument. Yet, this decision did not inhibit other business-related plans, leading eventually to the 1 June 1992 decision to transfer the castle into the authority of the IPPAR Instituto Português do Património Arquitectónico (Portuguese Institute of Architectural Patrimony), a forerunner of the IGESPAR Instituto de Gestão do Património Arquitectónico e Arqueológico (Institute for the Management of Architectural and Archaeological Heritage). In the meantime, a project to illuminate the castle grounds (in 1973 and, again, in 1981) and construction of an improved road accessway and parking area were completed in 1976-1977 by the municipal government of Aljezur (CMA). Urgent consolidation and repairs of the walls were undertaken in 1985.
On 21 November 1996, the CMA of Aljezur issued a public tender to elaborate a project to reconstruct, preserve and consolidate the remains of the Castle for the purposes of utilizing the structure as a method attracting tourism to the region. Two years later (29 September 1998), the final plan was presented publicly.
References
There is an excellent guide to the castle on an archaeology site here.
The history above is taken from the Wiki site here.
There’s a brief guide to the castle on this tourism site here.