From Roman miners to the House of Bragança and the Alqueva lake. Portel's story spans more than two thousand years.
The Serra de Portel has been lived in for thousands of years. Megalithic monuments (dolmens and menhirs) are scattered across the montado, like everywhere else in central Alentejo.
Romans, and perhaps Phoenicians before them, worked metal mines in the area. Traces of their mining can still be seen at the site known as the Algares. Roman villas and roads linked the land to Évora (Ebora) and Beja (Pax Julia).
For five centuries the region was part of Islamic al-Andalus. That time left its mark on the farming, the water systems and many place names in the south.
Évora was taken by the Portuguese in 1165, but the lands to the south stayed a contested frontier for decades. Only in the mid-13th century was the Alentejo settled for good.
In 1257 King D. Afonso III first granted Portel to his loyal nobleman João Peres de Aboim, who was also a troubadour. The king wrote to the good men of Évora asking them to accept Aboim as their neighbour.
There was a dispute over the boundaries, so the lands weren't marked out until 1261. That same year the king authorised a castle. On 1 December 1262, Aboim gave the people a foral (charter) granting them the rights and customs of the city of Évora. This is the birth of the municipality.
Under D. Dinis the castle was strengthened and gained its powerful keep. In 1359 D. Pedro I granted Portel to Rui Martins Toscano.
After the crisis of 1383–85, D. João I gave the district of Portel to his great general, the Holy Constable D. Nuno Álvares Pereira, in 1385. The square beside the town hall still carries his name.
When the Constable's daughter married D. Afonso, son of D. João I, Portel passed to the House of Bragança. It would remain tied to that family, the most powerful noble house in Portugal, for centuries.
The crown briefly took the town back in the 1480s and 90s, until it was returned to the dukes. On 1 June 1510 D. Manuel I renewed Portel's charter. At the same time the architect Francisco de Arruda rebuilt the castle. He added the Paço dos Duques de Bragança (the Dukes' palace) and the church of São Vicente inside the walls, both now in ruins.
The walled 'Vila Velha' (old town) around the castle was completed in this period. Churches such as the Misericórdia were built as the town grew down the hill.
When the Duke of Bragança became King João IV in 1640, the dukes moved to Lisbon and Vila Viçosa, and the castle at Portel lost its purpose. Slowly abandoned, it was a ruin by the 19th century.
Meanwhile the town lived from the land: cork, acorn-fed black pigs, grain, olive oil and honey from the montado of the Serra de Portel. Traditions such as the distilling of medronho grew up in the hills.
The state carried out restoration work on the castle in 1938. The decades after saw more decay, including a round tower of the palace falling. In 1998 part of the wall beside the keep collapsed, and repair campaigns have followed since.
As in the rest of rural Alentejo, the mid-century brought emigration, farm labour struggles and, after 25 April 1974, deep political change. Songs of José 'Zeca' Afonso were already a source of inspiration in Portel before the revolution. Local choirs kept cante Alentejano alive.
The Alqueva dam, filled from 2002, created Europe's largest artificial lake. It turned the eastern parishes of Amieira and Alqueva into a lakeside land of river beaches, boating and walking trails.
The Auditório Municipal opened in 2005. Every summer the town hosts the national youth wind orchestra, the Orquestra Nacional de Sopros. The castle has an interpretation centre, and the region is certified for its exceptionally dark night skies. In 2014 UNESCO recognised Cante Alentejano as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.