Cities, Villages and Places
Portalegre is located in one of the flanks of the Serra of São Mamede , which is a mountain range with a wide variety of fauna and flora, considered Natural Park. Here, you can find deer, wild boars and eagles in the forest of chestnut and oak trees. This wealth makes Portalegre for the natural […]
Following its conquest by Alfonso I in the 1160s, and its brief recapture by Almohads in the 1190s, Marvão’s situation remained fragile around the start of the 13th century: it was listed among Portuguese territories only in the termo of Castelo Branco in 1214. Marvão was a recently conquered outpost, that needed to be fully integrated into […]
Perched on a granite crag of the Serra de São Mamede, Marvão’s name is derived from an 8th-century Muladi duke, named Ibn Marwan. Ibn Marwan used the fortress as a power base when establishing an independent statelet (“emirate”, duchy) covering much of modern day Portugal during the Emirate of Cordoba (884-931 CE). The castle and walled village were further fortified through the […]
