3 Best Sights in Mertola, Évora and the Alentejo

Mértola has a handful of fine museums all within walking distance of one another on the town's hilltop, which together make a wonderful afternoon of sightseeing. The Núcleo Islâmico has impressive displays of jewels, metal items, and a collection of ceramics from the 9th to 13th centuries, when Mértola was ruled by the Moors. The Casa Romana is a restored, Roman-era house in the basement of the city hall. You can walk through the house's foundations and view a small collection of pottery and kitchen tools excavated nearby. The nearby Museu de Arte Sacra has religious statues and carvings from the 16th through 18th centuries, borrowed from Mértola's various churches. The museum group's oldest collection is housed in the Basílica Paleocristã and includes funerary stones and other artifacts excavated from the site of the town's paleo-Christian basilica and nearby cemetery.

Built in 1292, this castle contains carved stone from the Roman, Moorish, and Christian periods. The courtyard has a very deep cistern in the center. From the castle's Torre de Menagem, you can look down on archaeological digs along the sides of the fortress, and out over the river and rolling hills toward Spain.

Rising from the slopes above the river are the 12 white towers of Mértola's 12th-century house of worship, built on the ruins of a Roman structure. It was once a mosque and retains many of its original Islamic features, including a mihrab (a prayer niche that indicates the direction of Mecca).