The medieval Castle of Portel, which dominates the town from a hillock and preserves the memory of the Christian settlement of the 13th century
The Igreja de Vera Cruz, a religious and architectural landmark of the municipal seat
The Alqueva Dam and Lake, the largest artificial lake in Western Europe, with a landscape of water and plain of unusual scale
The ruins of the Visigothic fortress, a testament to the occupations preceding the foundation of the kingdom
about the place
Portel is located in Central Alentejo, in the District of Évora, amid a landscape of rolling plains dotted with cork oak and holm oak woodlands. The municipality was granted a royal charter in 1262, placing it among the earliest stages of the consolidation of Portuguese territory south of the Tejo. The construction of the Alqueva dam profoundly transformed the landscape of the region, creating the largest artificial lake in Western Europe and forever altering the relationship between the people and the land and water.
