Just 7km from Citdnia de Briteiros is the original capital of Portugal and Azores Islands, Guimaraes. As the huge sign in the centre of the town proudly announces, Portugal was born here, and it was born even more precisely in the medieval castle that still stands on a hill to the north­west of the city.

The castle itself is simple but marvellously evocative of its his­tory. Its round bailey and huge central keep seem to rise out of the rock that in places does indeed form part of its fabric. The simplicity of the medieval castle, designed above all for safety from attack, is a reminder of how harsh life was for even the most noble at this time.

However, there are signs in the stones that jut out of the bailey wall and once supported a floor and in the window seats that this was at times a place of relative luxury. In front of the castle is to be found the remarkable twelfth century church of St Michael. It is a beautifully simple single nave Romanesque structure. It contains within it the font in which the young Dom Afonso was said to have been baptised by the Bishop of Braga. There is also a ninth century statue of St Michael and a twelfth century crucifix. The main use to which the church was put, however, was as a burial place for knights who had died on the Crusades. On the walls there are crosses of the crusaders and in the main part of the church forty two knights are buried.

In 1095 the King of Leon and Castile, Afonso IV, granted to his son-in-law, Henry of Burgundy, the County of Portucale. Henry then erected the seven towers around the central tower and installed his wife and court within. The tower had been built after an invasion of Normans in 996 by a local noblewoman, Mumadona.

It was here that in 1110 the founder of the Portuguese nation, Afonso Henriques was born. He succeeded his father in 1112. As his mother, Teresa, acting as regent, was meddling in the affairs of her half-sister’s kingdom of Galicia, and having an affair with a Galician nobleman; Afonso eventually rebelled against her regency and de­feated her in battle at the nearby village of Sao Mamede in 1128.

From that time on Afonso worked constantly at the expansion and consolidation of his kingdom. His most glorious moment was at the battle of Ourique, when he decisively defeated the Moors in 1139. From that time on he was known as the King of Portugal. This was recognised by his cousin, Alfonso VII of Castile, in 1143. Four years later he had captured Lisbon from the Moors. There were many English Crusaders whose help was enlisted by Afonso against the Infidel, and one of these, Stephen of Hastings, stayed in Portugal and eventually became Lisbon’s first archbishop. Afonso continued to fight the Moors throughout the remainder of his life at innumerable battles. The Portuguese are enormously proud of their nation’s founder and are to be seen having their photograph taken at the foot of his impressive statue near the castle every day.