a tower built by three kings, in white marble
Twenty-seven metres of white marble extracted right here, from the subsoil of this part of Alentejo. That's what you're dealing with when you look at the Torre das Três Coroas: not limestone, not granite, it's marble from Estremoz, from start to finish, outside and inside. Few Iberian medieval monuments have this consistency of materials.
The name is no metaphor or heraldic fantasy. The construction of the Torre das Três Coroas actually spanned three reigns: it began with D. Afonso IV, continued with D. Pedro and it was D. Fernando who gave it the final form and the name. Three crowns, three reigns, one tower. On the terrace, those three crowns are represented in stone, clearly visible to anyone who climbs to the top.
Inside, the second floor holds an octagonal room with columns of Gothic moulded capitals, the kind of thing that appears in textbooks of Portuguese medieval architecture and that here you visit without crowds. The alcáçova where the tower stands was later a convent and is today a pousada, which means the courtyard surrounding it has a life of its own, discreet, with the royal palace to the left and the Igreja de Santa Maria closing the ensemble. The Rainha Santa Isabel died in this city in 1336, which says a lot about the historical weight this enclosure has carried.
Climbing the tower means reaching the top of the upper city of Estremoz and understanding, all at once, why three kings kept passing the project on to each other: from here you see the Alentejo plain open in all directions, with the Serra de Ossa as the only limit to the north.
three reigns in one block of stone
The Torre das Três Coroas belongs to the monumental complex of the Alcáçova, one of the best-preserved medieval structures in Alentejo. The low wall surrounding it, walked by a wide rampart and reinforced with four semi-cylindrical towers, gives the scale of what a serious stronghold looked like. Estremoz was, for centuries, one of the key military forces on the border with Spanish Extremadura, and this tower was the central point of all that defensive structure.
At about 27 metres high with a square plan, it's considered one of the best-preserved keep towers in the country. The pyramidal merlons at the top are typical of military architecture from the late 13th and early 14th centuries, but the volume of the tower belongs to a longer chronology, the one the three reigns built without rush and without shortcuts.
what you'll find
- white marble from Estremoz from floor to top, outside and inside
- octagonal room with Gothic columns on the second floor
- the three stone crowns on the terrace, with a view over the plain
- the alcáçova courtyard, with the royal palace and the Igreja de Santa Maria around it
