Architecture
The castle rises over a granite outcropping 18 metres (59 ft), it is approximately 310 metres (1,020 ft) long and 75 metres (246 ft) wide, in the middle of the Tagus River waterway, a few metres below its confluence with the Zêzere River in front of the town of Tancos. Although access to the Portuguese National Monument and fluvial islet is free, visitors to the structure must pay an inexpensive boat-ride across the river (which is the only way for visitors to reach the castle).
It is an irregular rectangular plan consisting of two enclosures: the exterior, lower level faces upstream with a traitors' gate, and walls reinforced by nine tall circular towers; and the interior enclosure, located in a higher elevation, whose walls are accessible by main gate to the main keep. The keep is three-stories tall and includes the original pads that supported the main truss. The remaining sentry towers are irregular, owing to the irregultar terrain. The keep is actually an innovation at this castle, appearing in the 12th century after the Castle of Tomar, the principal defensive redoubt of the Templars in Portugal. Similarly, the watchtowers were innovations brought into western part of the Iberian peninsula by the Order, and applied in Almourol.
The interior is bisected by several masonry doorways that link the different parts of the castle. Two inscription stones mark the castle's history and its re-edification by Gualdim Pais (over the main gate), as well as its Christian history (from the cross carved into the space above an open window in the keep).
Read more about this topic: Castle Of Almourol
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