A Small City in the Alentejo Littoral
Where's That?
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| Portugal |
Home to around 6,000 people it is the administrative centre of a municipality of 30,000. The huge old province of Alentejo is now divided between the modern districts of Portalegre, Évora and Beja, except for the small coastal area once known as Alentejo Littoral which included Santiago do Cacém. This has been absorbed into the district of Setúbal
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| The position of Santiago do Cacém in southern Portugal and (insert) position of municipality in Portugal |
A Little History
Eschewing the A2 auto-estrada we took the IC1 north from the busyness of the Algarve. For 100km the road becomes steadily quieter and the countryside
becomes wilder and emptier. Leaving the IC1 at Avalade, the final 30km
took us deeper and deeper into a rural backwater
The first known occupants of the area were Iberian Celtic tribes. The Romans arrived and built a town they called Miróbriga, administered
from 50 BCE to 400 CE from Pax Julia (now called Beja we visited in 2018). In the 4th century the Romans left. The
Alans arrived and were soon pushed out by the Vizigoths. They abandoned
Miróbriga and moved the population to the top of the nearby hill. All was
relatively calm until the Moors arrived in the early 8th century.
The Moors called their village Kassen and built a castle on the hill. During the Reconquista the castle was taken by Afonso I in
1157 but re-taken in 1190. King Sancho I assigned the region to the warrior
monks of the Order of Santiago but it was not until 1217, in the reign of
Afonso II, that they ensured the castle was firmly in Portuguese hands It
has been known ever since as Santiago do Cacém - which sounds a lot more like
Kassen than it looks to the Anglophone eye.
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| Santiago do Cacém - the castle on the hill |
Maybe by then the castle had done enough to justify the town’s bloodthirsty coat of arms, but it saw little action thereafter. It had various tenants and owners and eventually, like all castle, became less and less relevant and the town below its walls slipped into comfortable obscurity - except, of course, in October 1895....
When Santiago do Cacém Set a Portuguese First
22 vehicles took part in the June 1895
Paris-Bordeaux-Paris Race, reputedly the world’s first motor race (though actually a time
trial). Nine completed the 1,200km route, the 48 hours and 48 minutes
of Émile Levassor’s Panhard & Levassor being the best time.
Impressed by this feat and having friends in Paris, wealthy Alentejo landowner Jorge de Sousa Feio, Count of Avilez, was able to purchase a
Panhard et Levassor in September which reached Lisbon a month later. Portuguese
customs were uncertain how to deal with this novel beast, but after some negotiation
a classification was agreed, a tax imposed and it became the first ever car
registered in Portugal.
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| The Count of Avilez's Panhard & Levassor (public domain) |
Once the count and his mechanic had worked how to fuel their new toy and how to start it, they set off for the Count’s home in
Santiago do Cacém, a journey of 150km. It now takes about 90 minutes but then there
was no bridge over the Tagus, and the Panhard could cruise at 15km/hr on a good road, but there were no good roads.
They set out on October the 14th and arrived two days later. On the way they collided with a donkey in Portugal’s first ever car accident.
Motoring took off slowly, but once the royal family had bought a Panhard et Levassor, in 1898 there was no way back.
One hundred years later Santiago do Cacém celebrated being the destination of Portugal’s first ever car journey with an
installation on a roundabout at the southern entry to the town.
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| Count of Avilez, his associate and their mechanic reach their destination |
Under the one-party rule of the ultra-conservative Estado Novo (1933-74) levity was not (officially) part of Portuguese life and all public art was po-faced and sombre. Everything changed with the 1974 Carnation Revolution, now they do not take themselves so seriously – a healthy development.
30-Sept-2024
We made an error when booking this trip. The weather in the Algarve in the first two weeks of October is usually idyllic, so we booked accommodation for Tuesday the
1st to Tuesday the 15th and only afterwards thought about Santiago do Cacém.
Consequently we arrived on Sunday afternoon when many things are closed, even some
restaurants (though following the wise advice of the hotel receptionist, we ate well
in Santiago, see The Alentejo: Eating and Drinking.)
And if Sunday presents problems, Monday is worse, being the day museums and
other visitor attractions close.
The Castle of Santiago do Cacém
Fortunately, that does not apply to the castle, where anyone can wander anytime they choose, so we went there.
The Evolution of Santiago do Cacém
The Visigoths put their village near the top of the hill, the Moors built the castle. Towns clustered round castle walls, so that
in an emergency the inhabitants can go inside, which was safer than staying outside unless you have an enemy determined to lay siege,
which did happen here, but not often.
Times changed, the rule of law replaced the rule of might, bigger municipal buildings were required and construction is so much
easier on flat land, so the town’s administrative centre moved to the area east
of the castle. Then it started to spread south. At the point where
the broad road was once supposed to end, there is the out-of-town supermarket, the
commemoration of Santiago’s great day and across the road to the left the
three-storey bulk of the Hotel Dom Nuno, where we stayed.
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| The road into Santiago do Cacém |
Not that the town ends there, it straggles on a while, past a new Aldi to the final building, as so often in small town Portugal, a
tyre workshop.
To the Castle
The castle starts with a ten-minute walk into town but then you must turn uphill, so we decided to drive.
The drive is simple until you leave modern Santiago and enter a maze of narrow lanes with frequent tight turns. Reaching the top of
the hill should be simple but the many ‘one way’ signs mean that to keep going
up you sometimes must go down. Occasionally concrete steps intrude into the
road, and it is ridiculously easy to brush them against the sill of the car. I
only did it once.
Eventually we reached the top to find, not the castle but the Igreja Matriz, the parish church. It was locked and deserted, as was
the space outside, so it seemed a good spot to park.
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| Santiago Parish Church |
From here we could slip through to the castle wall.
Round the Castle Wall
And so we began our circumambulation. The castle was built to fit the hilltop, giving it an ‘irregular
trapezoidal form’ according to the information board. The walls, 196m long are
straight and supported by four square and five circular towers.
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| Around the castle, Santiago do Cacém |
The path extends round the whole exterior, though the best views are on the south side over parts of the town and to the Atlantic
Ocean 13Km away.
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| The coastal plain and the Atlantic Ocean |
The castle fell into disrepair in the 18th century, but a great deal more damage was caused by the 1755 Lisbon earthquake. With its epicentre 200km south west of Cape St
Vincent and strength estimated as at least 7.7, the earthquake destroyed Lisbon while a tsunami inundated the Algarve and Portugal's south
west coast.
Although designated a National Monument in 1910 the castle had to wait until 1930 for major renovation. Today, the curtain wall is
in good repair and the ruined mosque (later church) and keep are stabilised.
Near the end of our stroll we discovered the entrance and inside was a surprise. In the 1840s, long before any serious restoration
work was carried out the local people cleared the interior for use it
as the town cemetery.
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| Cemetery inside Santiago castle |
It is a peaceful and beautifully maintained space in what was once a place of war..
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| Cemetery inside Santiago castle |
…and also gives access to a balcony on the south of the exterior wall.
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| Balcony. Santiago Castle |
At Leisure in Santiago do Cacém
Having seen the castle, there was little left to do. We enjoyed a leisurely coffee and pastel de nata at the Pastelaria Serra then sat
for a while in the Jardim Municipal, in front of the Museu Municipal.
The museum was not open, because it was Monday. Visitors on any other day have, since 1930, been able to peruse the archaeological collection,
the numismatical collection and the recreations of traditional Alentejo life in
the ethnographic section. We could not, and it was all our fault.
Despite the minimal rainfall, the town’s tree population is diverse and healthy. Google Image search suggested the trees below were plane trees. At first I dismissed their suggestion, then noticed the patchy bark, considered
the effect of pollarding and decided they might be plane trees after all.
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| Plane trees, Santiago do Cacém |
Google told me this tree was a larch…
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| Unidentified tree, Santiago do Cacém |
…but it is not pointed enough and larches like cooler weather. Half way up a Swiss mountain, maybe, but Santiago has a full-on Mediterranean
climate, despite being beside the Atlantic Ocean.
These are orange trees – definitely.
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| Orange trees line the roadside, Santiago do Cacém |
At lunchtime we found a café for a snack and a beer, then wandered back to our hotel for a nap – we had been up at silly o’clock
yesterday to catch an 06.00 flight from Birmingham.
Later we drank a beer, sitting outside one of the small cafés that dot the town – beer costs half as much as in the Algarve.
In the evening, we found an unpretentious restaurant in the town centre and ordered porco preto, the meat of the Iberian black pig,
a local treat. We were seated next to a long table of Americans, a tour group
cycling down the west coast. They were not that young for such an enterprise
and I liked their spirit. Their guide was introducing them to presunto preto,
the ham of the black pig. This is one of my specialist subjects, so I involved
myself in the conversation. I could have delivered a 90-minute presentation
with power point, if there was projector to plug my phone into. Fortunately, I
restrained myself, which was, I am sure, good for international relations. Of course,
you may read about it, starting here:- To
Alájar in Andalusia.
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| Simple cooking and presentation, but fine pork |
01-Oct-2025
Miróbriga
We had a lunch appointment 170km away in Carvoeiro, but it was Tuesday, so Santiago’s main tourist attraction was now open and we
had to visit the Roman city of Miróbriga before leaving.
Pliny the Elder (23 – 79 CE) was the most reliable contemporary source to mention Miróbriga, a Roman settlement of some size in
this region. The remains of an important Roman settlement exist on the eastern
edge of Santiago do Cacém and it is very probably Miróbriga, though there is no absolute proof.
We started in the museum at the visitor centre.
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| Roof tile and half a pipe from a hypocaust, Miróbriga |
Although most of what remains is Roman, there is ample evidence of occupation since the Iron Age, possibly as early as the 9th century
BCE. The original inhabitants were Ibero-Celtic people, the suffix
"-briga" denoting a fortified place in the local Celtic language.
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| Roman lamps Miróbriga (we saw a whole museum dedicated to such lamps in Castro Verde!) |
Significant urban developments in the 1st century CE transformed the indigenous settlement into a Romanised urban centre. The main
residential area, however, looks a little underwhelming in its present condition.
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| Main residential area, Miróbriga |
Though there are some more convincing constructions nearby.
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| Houses? Shops? Who knows, Miróbriga |
And the paved path that leads down the slope beside the stream is almost 2,000 years old and does not have a single pothole.
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| Path with original Roman paved surface, Miróbriga |
The path leads past down past a bath…
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| Caldarium of the upper baths, Miróbriga |
… and then another bath (taking full advantage of the stream)
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| Lower baths, Miróbriga |
At the bottom is a perfectly preserved single arch bridge.
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| Roman bridge, Miróbriga |
At this point we realised we needed to leave and head south, so we missed the forum and its temples, and the hippodrome.
Some 500 meters south of the main settlement, the hippodrome (the only fully excavated example in Portugal) is 370 meters long and 75 meters width.
Chariot races were held here in front of up to 25,000 spectators.
The Romans left in the 4th century, the population started to fall and that brought the end for Miróbriga.
Birds
Merlin is a free app distributed by Cornell university
which records birdsong and identifies the singers. I used it at the castle and
at Miróbriga, collecting seven species I had not
previously recorded in Portugal or elsewhere.
Iberian Magpie - bright blue tail, makes our common magpie look boring
European Pied Flycatcher - a dumpy little black and white bird
Black Redstart - not as colourful as our common redstart
Sardinian Warbler - widespread around the Mediterranean, not just Sardinia
Crested Lark - actually has a smaller crest than our skylark
Spanish Sparrow - the Spanish have their very own sparrow!
European Serin - a tiny yellow and brown bird widespread throughout Europe, except for Scandinavia, the UK and Ireland.
Évora (2016)
Mértola and Alcoutim: Strongholds by the Guadiana River (2017) - also under Algarve
Beja, Capital of Baixo Alentejo(2018)
Castro Verde (1): Surrounding Villages (2022)
Castro Verde (2): Castro Verde and Ourique (2022)
Serpa (2023)
The Alentejo, Eating and Drinking (2024)
