Trancoso Castle

Trancoso Castle

A town inside its walls

High on the windswept plateau of central Portugal, where the air is clear and the winters are cold, lies the old town of Trancoso — and unlike most towns, it still wears its medieval walls like a stone belt. Step through one of its ancient gateways and you enter a maze of narrow streets and old houses, all gathered safely inside the ramparts. At one corner rises the castle, with its tall battlemented keep and a curious five-sided tower, looking out over the wide, rolling country.

A frontier stronghold

Trancoso sits close to the old frontier with the kingdom of Castile, in neighbouring Spain, and for centuries that made it a place of great military importance. The town and its castle were captured, lost and rebuilt several times during the long wars between Christians and Moors, and later they helped guard Portugal's eastern border against its Christian neighbours.

Because of this, Portuguese kings took care to keep Trancoso strong. King Dinis, who ruled around the year 1300 and built or improved castles all along the frontier, gave Trancoso its mighty walls and gates, turning the whole town into a fortress.

A royal wedding

Trancoso's proudest memory is a happy one. In 1282 the young King Dinis married Princess Isabel of Aragon here, and tradition says the wedding celebrations filled the town. As a wedding gift, the king is said to have given his bride the town of Trancoso itself.

Queen Isabel became one of the best-loved figures in Portuguese history. Famous for her kindness to the poor, she was remembered in the lovely "Miracle of the Roses", in which bread she was secretly carrying to feed the hungry turned into roses. Long after her death she was made a saint, and she is still honoured as the Holy Queen of Portugal.

Fairs, prophets and traditions

Trancoso has always been known for its great fairs, when traders gathered from far and wide — a tradition that continues today with the famous São Bartolomeu fair each August. The town was also the home, in the 1500s, of a mysterious shoemaker-poet named Bandarra, whose riddling verses about the future of Portugal were read and argued over for generations.

A living museum

Because its walls and old streets are so well preserved, Trancoso feels like a town that has stepped out of the Middle Ages. It is recognised as one of Portugal's "historical villages", carefully protected so that its medieval character is not lost. The castle, the gates and the ancient houses have all been restored and cared for.

Visiting today

Visitors can walk along the town walls, explore the castle keep and its unusual tower, and wander the narrow lanes within the ramparts, where old doorways and a former Jewish quarter recall centuries of history. From the battlements the view sweeps over the high plateau toward distant mountains. With its royal wedding, its saintly queen and its perfectly preserved walls, Trancoso is one of the most charming time-capsules in all of Portugal.