Page 306 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Portugal

EXPERIENCE Alentejo

Festival decorations
in the streets of
Campo Maior

9 10 palace complex, built for Dona
Isabel, is now a pousada. The
Campo Maior Estremoz saintly Isabel, wife of King
Dinis, died here in 1336 and
! F5 @ n Largo do Barata; ! F5 @ n Rossio Marquês the Capela da Rainha Santa
268 680 319 de Pombal; 268 339 227
dedicated to her is lined with
According to legend, this A key stronghold in the War azulejos recording her life.
peaceful town got its name of Restoration and then in Today the bustling weekly
when three peasant families the War of the Two Brothers, market in the Rossio, the main
settled in the campo maior, Estremoz looks out from its square in the lower town, is
the “bigger field”. King Dinis hilltop over groves of gnarled a reflection of local farming
fortified the town in 1310 and olive trees. life. Across the square are the
the monumental Porta da Vila The medieval upper town, re mains of King Dinis’s once­
was added in 1646. set within stout ramparts, is fine palace and the town’s
In 1732, a gunpowder dominated by a 13th­century Museu Municipal. The
maga zine, ignited by light­ marble keep, rising to 27 m museum is over two floors
ning, destroyed the citadel and (89 ft). This is the Torre das and displays such things
killed 1,500 people. It seems Três Coroas, the Tower of the as archaeological finds,
likely that after a period, the Three Crowns, recalling the restored living rooms and
victims provided the material kings (Sancho II, Afonso III and a parade of bonecos, the
for the morbid Capela dos Dinis) in whose reigns it was charming pottery figurines
Ossos, entirely faced in human built. The adjoining castle and for which Estremoz is famous.
bones. Dated 1766, it bears an
inscrip tion on mortality spelt
out in collar bones. ALENTEJO’S WHITE GOLD
The Museu do Café charts
the history of coffee with Portugal is the second-largest
exhibits such as rare antique exporter of marble, and even
grinders. A barista shows Italy, the biggest producer, buys
visitors how to make different its quality stone. Around 90 per
kinds of coffees. cent – over 500,000 tonnes a year –
is quarried around Estremoz. The
Capela dos Ossos marble from Estremoz and nearby
⌂ Largo Dr Regala 6 § 268 Borba and Vila Viçosa is white or
686 168 # Daily (if closed, pink, while the quarries at Viana
speak to priest) do Alentejo yield green stone.
Marble has been used for con-
Museu do Café struction since Roman times and
⌂ Delta Coffee, Herdade das in towns such as Évora (p296) and
Vila Viçosa (p300), palaces and
Argamassas § 268 009 630 humble doorsteps alike gleam with
# 9am–1pm, 2:30–6:30pm the stone known as “white gold”.
Mon–Fri; 10am–1pm, 3–6pm
Sat ¢ Public hols
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