Castle of Belmonte, Medieval fortress in Belmonte e Colmeal da Torre, Portugal
The Castle of Belmonte is a medieval fortress set on a hilltop in Belmonte, Portugal, built in granite with walls arranged in an irregular oval and flanked by defensive towers. A central keep stands at the core of the structure, surrounded by the protective curtain walls that define its outline.
King Sancho I granted Belmonte a royal charter in 1199, which marked the beginning of the fortress as a planned defensive structure. In the decades that followed, the castle was enlarged and reinforced to better protect this part of the kingdom.
The castle was the seat of the Cabral family, a Portuguese noble house that gave the country some of its most celebrated explorers. Walking through the stone rooms today gives a sense of how this family lived within these thick granite walls.
The site is explored on foot, and visitors can walk along the walls to reach different parts of the castle. The ground is uneven in places and some sections are steep, so sturdy footwear makes the visit much easier.
Roman objects found inside the main tower during excavations in the early 1990s show that this hilltop was already occupied well before the medieval period. This makes the site one of the few in the region where layers from two very different eras can be read in the same place.
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