Vila Viçosa

Overview

Vila Viçosa is the marble town of the Alentejo and the town of the Braganzas, 5,000 people on a plain of quarries between Estremoz and the Spanish border, with the Ducal Palace of the dukes who became kings at one end of its great square, the castle of King Dinis on the hill above, and a dozen churches and convents the dukes paid for in between. Marble is everywhere, pavement, doorstep and church step, because it is the local stone and 93 per cent of the town’s jobs.

The visit is the palace and its carriage museum, the castle with its Renaissance walls and hunting museum, the Braganza pantheon in the Agostinhos church, and a walk through streets where the kerbs are polished white.

History

A Roman settlement and then Moorish, the district was taken by the Order of Aviz in 1217, chartered by Afonso III in 1270 and given a castle by Dinis in the early 14th century against Castile. In 1461 it came to the House of Braganza, who made it their main seat: Duke Jaime began the palace in 1502 after his father’s execution had put him off the castle, and the dukes rebuilt it in Mannerist style through the 16th and 17th centuries and endowed the town’s churches.

When Duke João became King João IV in 1640 the family moved to Lisbon, taking the palace’s riches to the Ribeira Palace, and Vila Viçosa became a holiday home and began to decline; Carlos I made it his semi-official residence at the start of the 20th century and left it on 1 February 1908 for the square in Lisbon where he was shot. In the 20th century marble and tourism replaced farming, and since the 2000s the marble industry’s decline has emptied the town again.

Visiting

The Terreiro do Paço is the square: the palace’s long marble front, the equestrian statue of João IV, the church of the Agostinhos with the dukes’ tombs, the bishop’s palace and the Chagas convent, now a pousada. From the square walk up to the castle, whose 16th-century bastioned walls enclose the old town of the dukes, the church of the Conceição, the town’s patron and Portugal’s, and the archaeology and hunting museums in the keep, with the view over the quarries from the walls.

Back in the town, the Praça da República with its cafés, the marble-columned porticoes, the convent of the Capuchos and the knot of streets between are the walk; the quarries themselves, great white pits with blocks stacked like sugar, line the road to Borba.

Tips

• The palace tour is the fixed point; book it first and plan the castle and churches around it.
• Come for the Festas dos Capuchos or the 16 August holiday if you want the town awake; otherwise it is a quiet place and the evenings are short.
• Borba, 6 km, is the wine town, and Estremoz, 17 km, the market town with the Saturday fair; the three make a day by car.
• The A6 from Lisbon takes two hours; buses from Évora and Estremoz are the alternative.

Nearby

• Ducal Palace of Vila Viçosa: on the square.
• Castle of Vila Viçosa: five minutes uphill.
• Borba: 6 km.
• Estremoz: 17 km.