Legend says that the rock is enchanted by a delighted  Moorish princess betrothed by her father to a noble,  though she was in love with a prince that was in the war.

The father charmed her to the stone and every St John´s night the  Princess sits on the rock singing songs dedicated to the prince.

It is said that those who pass that night by the stone will also be enchanted.

The Caia Dam has the largest reservoir of Portalegre district, extending from the municipalities of Arronches, Campo Maior and Elvas.

It is a mixed dam, with concrete in the deepest part of the valley and embankment on the left bank of the river.

Located in rugged terrain marked by extensive olive groves.

The dam of Caia has good conditions for the practice of various sports and leisure activities.

This wealth makes Portalegre for the natural heritage and nature conservation, with considerable environmental quality.

The town of Portalegre is the capital of Portalegre district, with about 15,800 inhabitants. Soothes of a municipality with an area of ​​446.24 square kilometers, is divided into 10 parishes.

Portalegre was inhabited in prehistoric times and is of Roman origin, with beautiful houses from the Renaissance and the Baroque period.

It was John III which raised Portalegre to city status in May 23, 1550.

On July 18, 1835, Portalegre becomes the capital of the district.

For lovers of the human manifestations, Portalegre has several interesting buildings:

- Castle of Portalegre – located in the parish of the Cathedral, city and county Portalegre.  Great place from where was possible to defended  Alentejo front  Castile. It creates an interesting chromatic contrast with the dark and the walls white lime houses

- The Cathedral – This is a temple dedicated to Our Lady of the Assumption, which  construction began May 14, 1556

- The Municipal Museum – has a considerable estate especially coming from two ancient convents of Portalegre, Santa Clara and St. Bernard, as well as private donations;

- The House Museum Jose Regio – In this poet’s collection there is a place of choice for the simple things in popular art, where coexist sacred art pieces from rural everyday

- The Municipal Library, The Santa Clara Convent- Is the second oldest monastic establishment of Portalegre. Its foundation dates back to the second half of the fourteenth century, more specifically the year 1376.

Recommended activities in Portalegre

To enjoy the natural heritage is at all advisable to carry out walking routes in the Natural Park running through the county. There are several walking routes:

- The Carreiras route of pedestrian ;

- The Reguengo route Pedestrian

To carry out both routes, there are flyers with the route explanation despite it is marked on the ground.

There are also viewpoints from where you can enjoy the rich landscape:

- The Mirador de Santa Luzia, located in the Sierra de Portalegre, 670 meters;

- The Penha Viewpoint, located in the Serra da Penha;

- Pico de S. Mamede, located 1025 meters above sea level, the highest point of the Portuguese mainland, south of the Tagus. Here you can enjoy the Dam Apartadura, the village of Marvão, the Serra da Estrela and part of the Spanish Extremadura. Very interesting from the perspective of geology, has limestone and quartzite, greywacke and shale, which provides different soils;

- The Viewpoint of  Nossa Senhora da Lapa, a small church carved in the rock with an amazing view of the Natural Park .

Its Softsoap  and Soapstone were widely known throughout the kingdom.

The soap production took undeniable economic and social importance in Belver village. In this town was created a Royal Soap Factory that worked in royal monopoly of which there are still traces.

The royal concession economically optimized the Belver parish and that was the start up for some  royal soap factory workers. They took advantage of the knowledge acquired as well as the main raw materials to create their own  industries when this monopoly ended in 1858.

These industries or houses of Soft Soap, as they were called, constituted themselves as small strictly family-friendly productions, passed from generation to generation.

After packed up in twill and burlap bags, soap was mainly used in washing clothes and fabrics. Transported out of the county by mule drivers, who traveled on donkeys, when distances were larger, the soft soap was carried by the Tagus River on barges. The production of soap in this way lasted until the first half of the twentieth century, and for several decades a structural element in the Belver region economy. This production remain today only oral records of the descendants of the last soap men.

The recovery and transformation of the former elementary school in Belver Soap Museum aims to create a space of knowledge acquired by our ancestors and honor the collective memory of soap men in Belver.

The Synagogue is located at Rua Jewry / Fountain Street, the building is oriented towards east / west.

The entire assembly consists of a single volume, with two floors.

Commonly called “Synagogue”, but with the appropriate name of “BEIT-HA – midrash-SEFARDIN”.

Laws enacted by Lusitanian monarchs in order to create “Ghettos”, where only Jews lived, led to the appearance of neighborhoods, also known as the  Judiarias or “Jewish quarters”.

The Castelo de Vide Jewry occupied an area near the main door of the Castle, between the market and the Fonte da Vila. Extended through the medieval streets of the Source, the market, the Arçario, Jorge Mestre and Jewry, and by the current Street of Locksmiths and New Street.

In Castelo de Vide Jewry developed on the slopes of the village facing the east. Although established in one of the hilly areas, the neighborhood was crossed by a major axis castle communication with the outside and vice versa. The Jewish presence in Castelo de Vide left some material evidence that is especially relevant where the building is thought to have worked the Medieval Synagogue. Other buildings of the Jewry Street, Fountain Street or Ruinha Jewry also show that remains of the Jewish ancient tradition to mark their faith on their doorposts.

The establishment of the Inquisition and the publication of the Edict of Expulsion of the Jews from Spain realms by Ferdinand and Isabella, the Catholic Kings, contributed to the growth of the Castelo de Vide Jewry that keeps the place names of its streets the testimony of Jewish presence, but also the persecution of the Holy Office to the New Christians.

At the time of the Christian Reconquest of the Iberian peninsula, some evidence point to a supposed conquest by King Afonso Henriques (1112-1185) in 1148, as well as the granting of a charter in 1180. It is known with more certainty, that the town was in the domain of the Kingdom of Portugal in 1232 with municipal organization  in 1276.

Along the 13th Century the medieval fortifications were made and unmade for the manor interests always fought with the interests of the crown and also with the population that would rather have the distant king as their lord of the manor. Finally rises the castle on the initiative of King Dinis, it was concluded during the reign of his son, Afonso IV in 1327. This is how Vide became Castelo de Vide.

The visible basic materials employed in all fortifications are stone (granite and quartzite), brick, lime plaster and clay.

Castle of Castelo de Vide  is located in the parish of Santa Maria da Devesa, town of Castelo de Vide and Portalegre District.

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 Portugal, and which stood on the edge of territories conquered by an expansionist Kingdom of León.

The process of Portuguesification began under the reigns of kings Sancho I and Alfonso II. Yet it was the famous Christian victory over the Almohads at Navas de Tolosa (near Jaén) in 1212 – leaving 100,000 Moors dead – that would effectively secure this area of south-western Iberia, and establish a lasting peace. The São Mamede mountains and Guadiana valleys now became a bridgehead from which the reconquista could make strong inroads into Almohad territory in the Southern Alentejo, Algarve, Southern Extremadura and north-west Andalusia.

Marvão’s role as fortress now became more important not as a Christian or Moorish outpost-against-the-infidel, but as a territorial marker for the young – and by no means militarily strong – state of Portugal against the competing Christian Kingdom of León. In 1226, Marvão was among the earliest towns on the eastern border to receive from Sancho II of Portugal its foral (i.e. royal charter, allowing the town to regulate its administration, borders and privileges).

Another aspect of 13th century statecraft that would bolster the area’s ‘Portugalidade’ (Portuguese identity) would be the settlement of planted Christian colonists from the north (Galicia, the Minho), southern France and Flanders in territories around Marvão. This was done with royal approval, and with the intermediation of the Templars and Hospitallers.

The resettlement of barren areas depopulated by centuries of warfare and bloodshed – or simply abandoned by fleeing Berber refugees – was vital to sustain the new Portuguese kingdom. Many of these settlers were Galicians, and the name of the hamlet of Galegos in Marvão is likely to refer to its 13th–14th century settlers. Other nearby settlements took names from southern France: in the nearby Templar-controlled village of Nisa (Nice), we find hamlets named Tolosa (Toulouse),Montalvão (Montauban) and Arez (Arles) to denote the origins of their settlers.

Perhaps the most important development for Marvão at this time was the donation of borderlands to the military orders. The Templars, strong allies of Alfonso I, had during the 12th century been given lands north of the Tagus, including their headquarters in  Tomar and Castelo Branco, Also given broad responsibility to secure the river passage . In 1199, Sancho I of Portugal awarded lands to the north of Marvão (the Herdade da Açafa).

These extended across the present-day districts of Castelo de Vide and Nisa and into territories near Valencia de Alcántara that now lie in Spain. In 1232, Sancho II of Portugal donated further extensive domains south of the Tagus around Marvão and Portalegre to the Knights Hospitaller, along with the duty to fortify the frontier and help in its repopulation. The Hospitallers would dominate the administration of the region for two centuries, moving their Portuguese headquarters from Leça in Northern Portugal to nearby Crato in 1340.

Much of the architecture to be admired today in Marvão can be attributed to the guiding hand of the Hospitallers in extending the castle and village in the 13th-15th centuries. Hospitaller (Maltese) crosses can be seen on houses throughout Marvão’s walled village, including the door of the church that is the Municipal Museum.

In Marvão, gradual consolidation of Roman power led to the establishment of a substantial Roman town in the 1st century. Ammaia occupied up to 25 hectares, and with a population exceeding modern-day Marvão (5000-6000 inhabitants) Ammaia occupied the site of the present-day parish of São Salvador da Aramenha. The town flourished between the 1st century BCE and the collapse of the Roman Empire in the 5th century CE.

Ammaia’s location on the river Sever was the west-east waypoint on trading routes, linking towns such as Scallabis (Santarém), Eboracum (Évora), Olisipo (Lisbon) and Miróbriga (Cacém Santiago) to the provincial capital Emerita Augusta (present- Merida day) via Norba Caesarina (Cáceres).

The mountain of Marvão also would have served as a watchtower providing line-of-sight to the vitally-important Roman bridge at Alcántara. Local agricultural production (olives, wine, figs, cattle) was supplemented by horse-breeding, pottery, and mining activity – notably rock crystal and quartz veins from Marvão on the mountain, together with open cast gold mining on the Tagus to the north.

Roman Ammaia saw the development of improved irrigation and terracing across the Marvão mountain. Chestnut cultivation – Replacing the place dominance of oak is likely to have been introduced at this time. Much of the terracing and ancient watercourses on the mountain Marvão date from this era.

Limited excavations at Ammaia in the past two decades  covering a mere 3,000 m2 (32.292 sq ft) of the town’s area – have revealed the success, provincial expanding town that included running water, a forum, baths, the bridge over the river Sever (near today’s ‘Old Bridge’), and monumental gates (one gate was removed to Castelo de Vide in the 18th century, yet sadly dynamited in 1890).

The Alentejo region, meanwhile, was criss-crossed with efficient Roman roads, providing links to the wider Empire. Fine wares found at the site Ammaia suggest que Ammaia nobility had access to luxury glassware and jewelery, while archeology has Revealed que marble for the forum was imported from across the Empire. The high quality, for example, of the ‘Mosaic of the Muses’  from a Roman villa in nearby Monforte (4th century BCE)  points to the abundant riches to be made to an Alentejo landowner in the Roman era.

Sadly, many artifacts from Ammaia  in particular the series of marble sculptures were removed during the 19th and 20th centuries, notably by the Anglo-Portuguese Robinson family. These items are now in collections such as those of the British Museum.

It is speculative to comment on the population of Marvão at this time. Many carved tombs and burial chambers dot the granite boulders of the landscape around Marvão, suggesting small-scale farming settlements, and some cultural emphasis on burial rites and the afterlife. Excavations of dolmens (e.g. the Cavalinhas dolmen) reveal fetal-position buried skeletons, and grave goods including weaponry (axes, arrowheads), jewellery (necklaces), ceramics and stone idols. Cave art and engravings in the Tagus valley (40 km (25 mi) north of Marvão: 40,000 items) point to a developed culture based on prehistoric norms of agriculture, hunting and transhumance.

Further, ideograms  notably repetitions of spirals  point to both abstract ideas, religious observance, and some astronomical knowledge of lunar and solar cycles. Decorative objects – rock crystal arrowheads, floral and zig-zagged patterned stones (pedras de raio) and ceramics, deity sculptures  also suggest the development of local systems of craftsmanship, hierarchy, magic and celebration. Recent studies of idol plaques have speculated that they depict some kind of owl deity, with their engravings acting as a means to identify the individual buried by clan, marriage and lineage

The castle is part of the Natural Park Serra de São Mamede, on the northern slope of the mountain, in a dominant position over the village and on the strategic line of streak, controlling in the past the crossing of the river Sever, a Tagus River affluent. This fact assured it the attention of several monarchs, expressed on several remodeling campaigns, which gave the monument its current appearance.

In the context of the conquest of Alcacer do Sal, D. Afonso Henriques  took the town from the Moors between 1160 and 1166. By the demarcation of the Castelo Branco Term in 1214  Marvão was already included in Portuguese lands. More important was that D.Sancho II  granted it a charter in 1226.

D. Afonso III  donated the lands of Marvão to the knights of the Order of Malta (1271), later on granted it to his son, Afonso Sanches, along with landlords of Arronches, Vide and Portalegre Castle.

For this reason, at the beginning the reign of D. Dinis (1279-1325), the town and its castle found themselves involved in the dispute between the sovereign and the prince D.Afonso been conquered by the forces of the sovereign in 1299. At the end of the matter, the fields of Marvão, Portalegre Arronches and were replaced by Sintra and Ourem, remaining the first held by the sovereign. This confirmed the Marvão’s charter in 1226 and embarked on its expansion and strengthening of defenses, especially the construction of the tower which began in 1300.

As were other 11th-13th-century castles, the early medieval improvements and development of Marvão castle reflect the innovations brought back by crusading orders from the near east (notably the highly influential Hospitaller castle in Syria, the Krak des Chevaliers). The medieval castle seen in Marvão today mostly post-dates the year 1299, and features numerous characteristics of a crusader-era castle: a tall central keep with raised entrance on the first floor; a series of lower, outlying turrets (some semi-circular); high-placed arrow-slits; open spaces to aid the sheltering and assembly of villagers and troops; a well, and huge rain-collecting cistern to supply water to both keep and the wider castle in the event of siege; bent entrances (both on the village and castle gates) to slow down invaders in the event of breached gates; a series of narrow killing zones (notably, in the triple gate on the village-side of the castle); extensive crenellated battlements and curtain walls that enhanced the natural defences provided by the escarpments of Marvão’s rock.

Was classified as a National Monument in 1922, by a decree on July 4th.

The Castle of Marvao is located in the village and parish of Santa Maria de Marvão, Marvão municipality, Portalegre District.