Palmela Castle

Palmela Castle occupies a hilltop on the Setúbal Peninsula south of Lisbon, high above the Arrábida mountains and the Sado estuary — a position with views that, on clear days, reach toward the sea. The castle was taken from the Moors in the 12th century and became the headquarters of the Order of Santiago, one of the military-religious orders that played a central role in the Reconquista and in the subsequent administration of reconquered Portuguese territory. The Order built a convent inside the castle walls, a combination of military stronghold and religious house that reflected the order's dual identity as fighting knights bound by religious vows.

The Order of Santiago's convent remained in religious use for centuries, until the dissolution of Portugal's religious orders in 1834 — a sweeping 19th-century measure that emptied monastic buildings across the country and left many, including Palmela's, in search of a new purpose. That purpose arrived in the form of a pousada: the former convent was converted into a hotel between 1969 and 1979, a project that kept the building's 17th-century character rather than erasing it in favour of a purely modern interior.

Guests today sleep in the former monastic cells arranged around the cloister, many with views over the surrounding Alentejo and Setúbal countryside. Breakfast served in the cloisters is among the more atmospheric ways to start a day at any of Portugal's pousadas, with the Pátio das Laranjeiras courtyard and a restaurant in the former refectory — which keeps its original pulpit — rounding out the sense of staying inside a working religious house rather than a purpose-built hotel.

Crucially, the pousada occupies the convent, not the castle's military core: the keep and ramparts of Palmela Castle remain a separate, publicly accessible part of the complex, which guests can explore on foot directly from the hotel. The result is a stay that combines overnight comfort in a historic religious building with a working medieval fortress immediately next door.