Alfama is much like San Francisco in that it’s built on several steep hills, and at the top of the main hill is Sao George Castle. This castle has an incredible viewpoint of all of Lisbon, and is apparently the #1 tourist site to see. Based on that, we got there early, since there were serveral cruise ships in town. The views were truly the best we’ve seen.
The place is a lot larger than I expected, and we ended up spending 2.5 hours there. This location has been occupied since the 2nd century BC, when it became fortified by the Romans, but the real castle took shape under the Moors in the 10th century.
In 1147, the Moors were defeated by the Crusaders, with the legend being that Martim Moniz spotted an open doorway, and threw his body inside the doorway to allow the rest of the Crusaders to enter the castle. His name appears throughout Lisbon, including the main Metro station we arrived at from for the airport. You get to walk right by this gate, but there was nothing adjacent to the gate talking about this encounter. There is a local depiction on tile on the side of a church in the Alfama area.
Be prepared for lots of steps! My legs were not used to all of that! I don’t think anybody in Lisbon bothers with going to the gym to workout….they just visit the castle!
We saw a bunch of peacocks inside the castle. Glad we aren’t staying too close by!
