Rising above Moura's old town on a limestone plateaux are the ruins of a once grand castle. The medieval Castelo de Moura was built by King Dom Dinis in the 13th century on the site of an earlier Moorish citadel. There is evidence that the site is even older than this suggesting there was originally an Iron Age hill fort here.
Moura is a large town in the thinly-populated (and relatively impoverished) Alentejo region. The town is supposedly named after the Moorish Princess Moura Saluquia. Legend has it that Saluquia threw herself from one of the towers of the castle after her lover was killed and she was subsequently tricked by the Portuguese, who dressed up in his clothes, into lowering the drawbridge.The Moors' five…
