Évoramonte Castle

Évoramonte Castle

A castle like a giant stone cube

Among the many castles of the Alentejo, Évoramonte stands out at once, because it does not look like the others. Instead of a tall keep or a sprawling ring of walls, it is a great square block of a building — almost a perfect cube — with a round tower at each of its four corners. Strangest of all, carved bands of stone wrap around the outside of the cube, looking for all the world like enormous knotted ropes tied around a parcel. It crowns a hill in the high Alentejo, between the cities of Évora and Estremoz, with wide views in every direction.

A frontier fortress rebuilt

There has been a castle on this hill since the Middle Ages, guarding the roads of the eastern Alentejo. King Dinis, around the year 1300, fortified the town and its stronghold as part of his great chain of frontier castles. For centuries an ordinary medieval castle stood here.

Then, in 1531, a powerful earthquake shook the region and badly damaged the old fortress. Rather than simply patching it up, its lord — a member of the great Bragança family — had it rebuilt in a bold new style. The result was the remarkable cube we see today, with its corner towers and its famous carved stone "ropes", a design influenced by the fashionable Italian ideas of the Renaissance. It is one of the most unusual castles in Portugal.

A castle that ended a war

Évoramonte's most famous moment came in 1834, during one of the saddest chapters in Portuguese history: the Liberal Wars, a civil war fought between two royal brothers and their supporters. On one side was Dom Pedro, who wanted a modern government with a constitution; on the other, his brother Dom Miguel, who wanted to keep all power in the hands of the king.

The war tore Portugal apart for years. At last, in 1834, the defeated side agreed to make peace, and the leaders met in the little town beneath Évoramonte Castle to sign the agreement that ended the war — the Convention of Évoramonte. With the stroke of a pen, brother stopped fighting brother, and Portugal began a new chapter. A simple house in the village still marks the spot, and the castle on the hill above looked down on this moment of reconciliation.

A quiet survivor

After the war, the little town of Évoramonte slipped back into quiet country life, and its strange cube of a castle stood watch over the peaceful hills. In modern times the fortress was restored and protected as a national monument, its curious carved ropes preserved for visitors to admire.

Visiting today

Visitors who climb to Évoramonte can explore the unusual cube-shaped castle, marvel at its stone "ropes" and corner towers, and enjoy sweeping views over the Alentejo from its walls. In the village below, the house of the famous convention recalls the day a civil war was ended here. Odd, striking and full of history, Évoramonte is unlike any other castle in Portugal — a giant carved cube on an Alentejo hill.