Beja stands on a hill amid the vast wheat plains of the Baixo Alentejo, the hottest and least populated part of Portugal. Founded or refounded by the Romans as Pax Julia, it was also an important centre under the Visigoths and Arabs. Today it is a pleasant, quiet town with an old centre of white houses, churches and squares.
The castle
The town's symbol is its castle, rebuilt in the thirteenth century by King Dinis on older fortifications. Its marble and granite keep, about 40 metres high, is one of the tallest in Portugal: climb the steps for a boundless view over the plain.
The convent and the Portuguese Letters
The finest monument is the convent of Nossa Senhora da Conceição, founded in the fifteenth century, with a Gothic-Manueline portal, an azulejo-lined cloister and a church covered in gilded woodwork. It now houses the Rainha D. Leonor Regional Museum. In this convent lived the nun Mariana Alcoforado, to whom the Portuguese Letters are attributed: five love letters to a French officer published in Paris in 1669, which were a huge success across Europe. Many scholars now believe they were written by a French author, but the legend of the nun in love remains tied to Beja.
More to see
Visit the small Ermida de Santo André, with cylindrical turrets, and the Rua do Sembrano archaeological centre, which shows remains from the Iron Age to Roman times beneath a glass floor. In the centre are Praça da República, with its Manueline pillory and the Misericórdia church, and the Visigothic museum in the church of Santo Amaro, one of the few devoted to this period in the Iberian Peninsula.
Food and surroundings
Beja's food is typical of the Baixo Alentejo: bread soups, black pork, sheep's cheese and convent sweets. A few kilometres away is the Roman villa of Pisões, with mosaics. Beja is linked to Lisbon by train and bus (about two and a half hours) and has a small civil airport; Évora, Mértola and Serpa are close by.