The historic city of Elvas was distinguished by UNESCO in 2012 as a World Cultural Heritage Site. This distinction was due to the fact that this fortress city, on the border between Portugal and Spain, has the largest defensive structures of the bastioned type, in the world, with its characteristic star-shaped walls. The city’s fortifications, through which the Moorish and medieval periods are crossed, as well as Renaissance innovations and, due to the regular modernization of structures, the advance of time until the 19th century, are “one of the most important cases of overlapping functions and of evolution of strategic and military conceptions throughout history “, referred the proposal then sent to the National Commission of UNESCO.
Stage of countless battles, between Christians and Muslims, between Portuguese and Spanish or between English and Portuguese troops against the French army of Napoleon, visiting Elvas is to know the evolution, strategy, technique and military history in the last 1000 years. A must for lovers of military tourism, 1 hour from Évora.