Crato Castle

Crato Castle, locally known as Castelo de Crato or Castelo de Azinheira, lies in the village of the same name in the Alto Alentejo region in Portugal.

The first fortification on this site, a hill overlooking the area, may have been a Roman fortress.

Although the region already passed from Muslim to Christian rule in 1160, Crato castle was founded only in 1232, when Sancho II of Portugal donated the territory to the Knights Hospitaller with the order to fortify it. The order later moved its headquarters from Leça do Balio in the north to Crato in 1340, and in 1356 also built a fortified monastery nearby; the Flor da Rosa Monastery.

In 1430, the order reconstructed the castle and also built a town wall. During a succession crisis, in 1440, Eleanor of Aragon, Queen of Portugal, sought refuge with the order in Crato. She stayed there for a month while waiting for a promised intervention of Castilian forces. When this didn't happen, she fled to Castile. But as a result of having harbored the fleeing queen, the castle was besieged and devastated by the troops of the regent; Peter, Duke of Coimbra, but restored later.

Crato Castle was the scene of the wedding of Manuel I of Portugal with Eleanor of Austria in 1518.

During the Portuguese Restoration War, works began in 1642 to modernize the castle's defenses. To adapt it to the advances in artillery, the medieval castle began to change into a star fort. In 1662, however, with the works still in progress, it was taken by Spanish troops under John of Austria. The castle was severely damaged in the process and torched. It was never taken into use again and progressively fell to ruin.

In the 2nd half of the 20th century, the ruin was consolidated and restored several times. In the 1990s the castle was granted to a foundation that had great plans for a museum, a conference center, and a hotel. They started to build some very ugly concrete structures inside the castle walls. At present however these works seem to have stopped long ago and the castle now lies abandoned with even the concrete structures already crumbling.

At present Crato Castle can not be visited, its gates are locked. What a sad sight, this mix of old walls and ugly concrete.

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