Viana do Alentejo

VIANA DO ALENTEJO, a simple twenty-minute drive from Évora down the ruler-straight N254, is a typically dozy southern Alentejan town which nonetheless preserves a highly decorative castle, full of Mudejar and Manueline features. The walls were built on a pentagonal plan by Dom Dinis in 1313, and the interior ensemble of buildings was expanded under Dom João II and Dom Manuel I in the late fifteenth century. To this latter period belongs a sequence of elaborate battlements, with their witch’s hat towers and pinnacles, and the beautiful Igreja Matriz (parish church) which has a superbly carved door. You can grab a quick coffee down the street from the castle in the Praça da República before moving on.