Saint George Castle

Largo do Chão da Feira
Phone: (+351) 218.877.244

Saint George Castle
Over a visigothic fortress, itself founded over pre-roman vestiges, the arabs built Castelo de São Jorge to shelter the main buildings and the population. From there, a wall (Cerca Moura, Moorish Wall) stretched all the way down to the river.

After the conquest of Lisbon, in 1147, by king Afonso Henriques, the castle ceased to have a defensive role.

King Dinis transformed it in a royal palace that was kept up to the times of king Manuel I, even after the building of Paço da Ribeira (Ribeira Palace), next to the river.

Practically destroyed by the 1755 earthquake, it was abandoned, until the military occupied it for their garrisons.

This situation lasted up to the 1930´s, when, under the castle reform program included in the Portuguese World Exhibition, it got the present looks.

Recent rehabilitation works in the old fortress and the adjoining quarter led to the installation, on one of the towers, of a giant periscope, by the means of which it is possible to see, on a dark room, live images of the buzzing city below.