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Monday, December 6, 2010

Visit the Fortress of Sagres

The Fortress of Sagres is located in a dominant position crowning the Ponta de Sagres, in the village of Sagres.
From its craggy cliffs, constantly beaten by wind, the visitor enjoys a breathtaking panorama along the coast.
The fort itself and its surroundings, built in the Natural Park of Southwest Alentejo and Costa Vicentina, offer the possibility of a close look at the natural heritage of the coast, especially with regard to flora, sheltering some of the most representative species of the region (as eg alquitura-do-algarve-Pampilhosa the sea, the Zimbreiro, the Vincentian Polio, the herb-divine, esparto, the daffodil-the-sand, a salting, the whiner, the leek-mad, and the hollyhocks Perrexil-fish).
The fort was badly damaged by the tsunami immediately following the earthquake of 1755, when the giant wave climbed the height of the cliff. The state of ruin, caused by time and the elements, remained until the reign of King Mary I (1777-1816) when it ordered the reconstruction of the structure.
Classified as a National Monument by Decree of June 16, 1910, restoration work was promoted in the 1950s and 1960s seeking to distort the structure return it to original configuration sixteenth century.
Today, the Fortress of Sagres is open daily to the public. Besides being able to assess the structures before the eighteenth century, recovered, modern interventions allowed to visit the various areas of the headland, and can still take advantage of an exhibition center, a media center, shops selling cultural items and a cafeteria.
The Fortress has a polygonal bastion trace, and is composed of a curtain closing the land side and a wall that extends into the left flank. At both ends of the curtain rise from the mid-1793's ramparts, one under the invocation of Saint Barbara (patron saint of Artillery) and one of St. Anthony (patron saint of the Portuguese Army).
Halfway through the curtain opens the Gate Plaza Monumental in neoclassical style, topped by a coat of arms on the pediment and an epigraphic plaque referring to the then governor of the Algarve, D. Nuno José Nepomuceno Fulgencio John de Mendonca e Moura (1793).

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