Citadel of Cascais

While in Portugal, rather than stay in Lisbon, our tour housed us in Pestana Cidadela Cascais which has been built or adapted from the Citadel of Cascais. It was part of a set of fortifications built between the 15th and 17th centuries to defend the coastline which was constantly threatened by the English. I suppose you have to say, 700 years later, it failed as the place now had plenty of English tourists, including me :-) 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citadel_of_Cascais

The small fort wasn't accessible (or at least I couldn't find a way in),

but I had fun walking round the larger fortress.

The view from our room,

looking towards the marina,

small fort on the left.

There was only limited access to the walls.

Unbelievably our tour bus was able to reverse into the courtyard

via this gate.

What I first thought was an abandoned car

was actually a sculpture.

The fortress does function as an arts precinct.

One of those four bottom windows is ours,

probably the one the right.

What I took to be a Peninsular War memorial

Actually commemerates a number of wars

The Portuguese involvement in WW1 makes for interesting reading

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portugal_during_World_War_I

No Wikipedia entry for this guy but I did find the following which fits in with the above information:

• Diogo de Meneses – Behead (or hanged) by orders of the Duke of Alba during the War of the Portuguese Succession

Hórreos

 Back in early August at the club a game was in progress that had an interesting bit of terrain:

I asked what they were and was told they were apparently used for grain storage and very common in Galicia.  The name of these buildings was a bit tricky for our inglese tongues. Later, through using Wikipedia, I confirmed them to be hórreos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%B3rreo

What piqued my interest was that I was about to go to Spain, specifically Galicia to walk part of the Camino de Santiago.

So imagine my excitement on the first day of the walk, 6 September, 

when I saw my first horreo.

Ooh and look, there's another!

A notice board gave me the necessary information

to mansplain to a fellow pilgrim

when she asked me what they were.

Very excited to see a wooden one.

And this old one on another farm.

But they were even on the streets!

But it was the seemingly abandoned ones that had the most charm

I'm guessing this one is no longer in use,

by humans at least.

Speaking of humans, here is a delightful one to show scale

Every day provided more examples.

More prevalent than churches and graveyards

Almost organic.

A wonderful adjunct to the walk.

 

So, on the right we see a symbolic horreo,  a traditional way of storing rural produce.  

While on the left we have an adjacent church, a Camino way post complete with pilgrim. 

In the background there is an example of a modern way of storing human remains. 

One final photo.  The last two days of our walk were rainy,

not conducive to photography.  But this intrigued me...

The bottom has been bricked in, with what to my wargame eye,

looked like some kind of embrasure.  

I'd seem a number of these kinds of apertures,

and while sure they were just for ventilation,

couldn't help thinking they were some way of repurposing 

of excess fortification stoneware.

After this I looked for an appropriate souvenir and finally found one in Portugal. Not exactly to scale but will do nicely.