Elvas lies in the Alto Alentejo, about a dozen kilometres from the Spanish city of Badajoz, and for centuries was Portugal's main stronghold on the road to Madrid. Its extraordinary defences, with star-shaped walls, dry moats, forts and an aqueduct, are considered the world's largest complex of dry-ditch bastioned fortifications and have been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2012 as a "garrison border town".
The fortifications
The present walls were built mainly in the seventeenth century, during the Restoration War against Spain (1640-1668), on the Dutch model, with bastions, ravelins and moats completely encircling the town. In 1659, at the battle of the Lines of Elvas, the town withstood a Spanish siege and the Portuguese army won a decisive victory. Outside the walls are two forts: the seventeenth-century star-shaped Fort of Santa Luzia, now a military museum, and the mighty Fort of Nossa Senhora da Graça, built in the eighteenth century on the hill to the north by the Count of Lippe, one of the masterpieces of European military architecture.
The town
Inside the walls, Elvas is a quiet town of white lanes. Its heart is Praça da República, with its black and white geometric paving, overlooked by the former cathedral, the church of Nossa Senhora da Assunção, with an azulejo-lined interior. Just above, Largo de Santa Clara has a Manueline pillory, and the octagonal church of Nossa Senhora da Consolação is lined with superb seventeenth-century azulejos. The medieval castle, Arab in origin, gives a fine view over the plain and Spain.
The aqueduct
Arriving in town you will be struck by the Amoreira aqueduct, built between the late fifteenth century and 1622, about seven kilometres long, with hundreds of arches that in places exceed 30 metres in height. It carried water to the town fountain inside the walls.
Food and surroundings
Elvas is famous for ameixas de Elvas, candied greengage plums with protected designation of origin, and for Alentejo cooking based on meat and bread. Nearby are the town of Campo Maior, known for coffee and for its paper-flower festival held every few years, and Spanish Badajoz, a quarter of an hour away. Elvas is about two and a half hours from Lisbon by car on the A6 motorway, or by bus; Évora and Estremoz are under an hour away.