There is no certainty whether it was the Ponta de Sagres, whose name came from Sacrum Promontorium, or the nearby Cape St Vincent, that was thought to be sacred promontory. Estrabo(was a historian, geographer and Greek philosopher) believed that the promontory was the westernmost point of “all the inhabited world”. In fact, the Cape […]
When Henry, the Navigator, son of King John I and Duke of Viseu, started its holdings, began the Age of Discovery in the Vila do Infante for Sagres peninsula had no requirements for such undertaking. There was little drinking water, agriculture was residual, there was a shortage of wood for shipbuilding, there was no deep […]
Sagres is a civil parish in the municipality of Vila do Bispo, in the southern Algarve of Portugal. The population in 2011 was 1,909, in an area of 34.37 km². It is historically connected to the early Portuguese Age of Discovery. The name Sagres, follows from Sagrado (holy) owing to the important local religious practices and rituals that occurred during the pre-history of the nation. From here some of the […]
The Raposeira is a quiet town belonging to the municipality of Vila do Bispo, in the magnificent western Algarve. This is a region of ancient Roman occupation, existing within the Raposeira important prehistoric legacy as the Menhir of Aspradantes or menhirs set of Milrei and Standard. In Raposeira resided Infante Dom Henrique, such proximity to […]
The Vila do Bispo municipality has the largest concentration of menhirs in the Algarve. With a known number of around 300 exemplares10. They consist mostly of white limestone, whose whiteness makes them an element that stands out in the landscape, and is also known, in the county, three copies in sandstone. With sub-cylindrical forms, sub-conical, […]
Vila do Bispo is a Portuguese town in the district of Faro, Algarve region and sub-region, with about 1000 inhabitants. It is the seat of a municipality with 179.06 square kilometers of area1 and 5258 inhabitants (2011), subdivided into 2 3 4 freguesias.4 The municipality is limited to the northern city of Lagos, northeast of […]
Zambujeira do Mar is a small sea side town on the coast of the Alentejo, in western Portugal. It has some fine sandy beaches and picture perfect traditional architecture, making it a small but well loved destination for visitors. Zambujeira’s coast is part of the Nature Park of the Southwest Alentejo. Zambujeira do Mar is a parish of Odemira, […]
The Seixe of Ribeira is in its final leg, the boundary between the municipalities of Beja and Lagos, between the Southwest Alentejo and the northwest of the Algarve in southern Portugal. According Adalberto Alves, on your Arabisms dictionary of the Portuguese language, the origin of Seixe place-name is the Arabic word sayh, ‘torrent’. The main […]
To the north, the division is made by the limits of Odeceixe parish; the source, the division is made by the limits of Odeceixe parish; south, between the Atlantic Ocean and the national road No 120, is bounded by the cadastral sections AL and AJ; on the national road No 120, near the Mount of […]
The legend of Mareares A local tradition falls in the realm of legend episode of Castle conquest by the Christians: Aware of the privileged position of the castle and the close watch kept by the Moors, Paio Peres Correia, some Portuguese dispatched scouts to test the waters and the habits of the population of the […]
