Castelo de Mourão

Mourão keeps its castle on the very edge of the town, where the ground falls towards the Guadiana and the waters of the Alqueva lake spread south. The fortress watched the frontier with Castile for six centuries, and its walls became the setting of one of the Alentejo’s best-known legends, the story of the Moorish maiden Salúquia.

A legend written in stone

The story tells of Salúquia, who waited on the walls for her bridegroom and threw herself from the tower when his death was made known, giving the town its name. The castle itself is fact enough: a walled enclosure with a keep rebuilt after the Restoration wars, when the fortress returned to Portuguese hands for good. The walls ran out of work once the border had moved, and the stone settled into the quiet of a small town of white houses.

The lake at the foot of the walls

With the Alqueva dam, the Guadiana rose to meet the foot of the hill, and the castle now stands over one of the largest artificial lakes in Europe. The water carries fishermen and boats between quiet banks, and the steppe around the lake holds one of the darkest night skies in the country, marked for stargazing. From the battlements the view runs across the lake to the far shore and the frontier beyond.

What to see

• The castle walls and the keep above the town
• The view over the Alqueva lake from the battlements
• The legend of Salúquia in the streets of the town
• The banks and beaches of the Alqueva below the castle
• The night sky of the steppe country

Practical information

Mourão lies in the eastern Alentejo, about forty minutes by road from Reguengos de Monsaraz and Évora. Summer heat is strong on the plain; carry water and check the official websites before visiting.

Image credit: Castelo de Mourão by Senhormario — CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.