Castro Marim

• Historic Town
• Historic
• Castles
• History
• Nature
• €€

Castro Marim sits on the last low hills before the Guadiana meets the sea, looking across the river to Ayamonte in Spain and south over salt pans towards Vila Real de Santo António. Two fortifications frame the town: the thirteenth-century castle, which became the first headquarters of the Order of Christ after 1319, when the successor to the Knights Templar was established here, and the seventeenth-century Fort of São Sebastião on the hill opposite. Around them spreads the Reserva Natural do Sapal de Castro Marim e Vila Real de Santo António, the first nature reserve created in Portugal: a landscape of marsh and working salinas where flamingos, spoonbills and avocets feed, and where salt and flor de sal are still raked by hand. The town below the walls is small and whitewashed, with cafés around the church square. In late August the castle hosts the Dias Medievais, one of the country's biggest medieval fairs, which fills the town for several days of markets, jousting and costumed crowds. Castro Marim suits people who trade beaches for history and birdlife: the sands of Monte Gordo and Altura are minutes away when you want them, and Spain is just across the bridge.