Places to visit in the Algarve, Portugal

Forteleza de Sagres - the Fortress of Sagres & Henry the Navigator

Follow the N125 west from Lagos to Vila do Bispo, continuing on the N266 towards Sagres.  The landscape changes, the vegetation becomes coarse and low and the fig trees hug the ground for protection from the inevitable wind.  As you enter the town, there is a roundabout: turn left into the town centre, right to Cape to Vincent or go straight over onto the Promontorium Sacrum - the Sacred Promontory towards the Forteleza which you see in the distance.

Sagres entered into history in the 4th millennium B.C.  This was the last sheltered port where shipping from the Levant could put into before setting off in to the Atlantic.  The crews would climb the promontory to consult the gods and make vows, turning the promontory into a point of reference for seafarers.

In 779, according to local religious tradition, the mortal remains of St Vincent. the 4th century martyr of Zaragoza cast adrift in Valencia arrived at the Promomtorium Sacrum and were laid to rest in the church of Corvo (Raven) in the locality.  The relics of St Vincent were retrieved by sea in the 12th century and laid to rest in Lisbon which had just been conquered from the Moors.

Three centuries later, it was in this remote place that the Infante D. Henrique, Prince Henry the Navigator came to pursue his obsession for seamanship.  The precise location of Henry's "school of navigation" is not known for sure.  It is generally thought that his ships were built and kept in the harbour at Lagos but that Henry's headquarters, Vila do Infante - Prince's town, were sited on the Promontorium Sacrum within the walls of the Forteleza. Henry, single-handedly, set Portugal on a course which was to make her one of the foremost maritime powers of Europe.  His school, symbolically set on a promontory that looked out from the extremity of Continental Europe to what was the vast unknown of the Atlantic Ocean, attracted the best people in Europe concerned with the nautical sciences of astronomy, naval engineering and navigation. Under Henry's patronage, they came here to teach and to study.  Coordination of all the known nautical information was undertaken and continually added to as more knowledge became available.  Henry funded the Voyages of Discovery and the invention of the Caravel, a small, light and extremely manoeuvrable ship eventually enabled explorers and merchants to reach the Far East, India and the Americas and open up trade and cultural links.

Considerable erosion and the course of history have left few remains of the original settlement.  There is a cistern tower, the foundations of a windbreak wall which is now heavily restored and crowned by false battlements and the so called windrose or mariner's compass, described as a curious paving and discovered, by chance, in 1921.  There are also foundations of buildings backing onto the outer wall.   Little dates from before the 16th century except the Church of Nossa Senhora da Graça (Our Lady of Grace), reconstruction of which includes the doorway and the bastioned wall remodeled at the end of the 18th century. 

Recently constructed buildings, which sought to transform the space within the fortress, house an exhibition centre and services for visitors although this architectural intervention has caused controversy.

The sheer beauty of the coastline, the waves crashing against the cliffs and the starkness of the landscape is breathtaking.  If for no other reason than this, the Forteleza de Sagres and the promontory on which it sits is worthy of visiting.  Look out for the fisherman perched on the cliff-tops some 50 - 80 plus feet up  - plenty of fish is caught here.

Would you like more suggestions?  Take a look at our Things to do in the Algarve and Places to go in the Algarve sections for loads of ideas of what to do and where to go