Noudar Castle - Barrancos

Noudar would have been, until the Portuguese conquest, a simple fortification, eventually a tower, that during the Moorish occupancy of the region would make the control of the road that linked to Beja.

With the Christian reconquest of the region, around 1167, by the army commanded by the legendary Gonçalo Mendes da Maia, it is by the hand of King D. Dinis (1279 to 1325), around the year 1300, that Noudar village is donated to the Avis Order, with the condition to built this Castle, that was probably concluded in 1308.

The village and its Castle were occupied by Spanish troops after the Restoration of the Portuguese Independence War until 1707. Its restitution to the Portuguese Crown was signed in the Utrecht Treaty on the 6th February 1715.

Nowadays classified as a National Monument, this Castle even got to be sold to a Barrancos proprietary in 1893.
Built in a hexagonal plan, it has a wall with 12 towers, and a donjon with over 18 meters high and two cisterns.
The Castle is linked to a legend that says that here exists an enchanted Moorish Maid, that can be only seen at night, in a shape of a snake with a braid rolled in the head.