Flourishing rock plants flower on the sunny sloping seafront ramparts of the Fortaleza de Peniche or Peniche Fortress, founded in the mid-1500s by King John III to guard the Atlantic coastline and busy harbour at Peniche in Leiria District, central Portugal. Domed brick or stone bartizans or corner lookout towers protrude from the walls at their angles.
Peniche, Leiria District, Portugal: flowering rock plants rooted in nooks and crannies flourish on the sun-baked sloping or battered waterfront ramparts of the Fortaleza de Peniche or Peniche Fortress. An angle of the walls is crowned by an ancient loopholed brick bartizan or corner tower topped by a brick dome and stone finial. The fortress, founded by King John III, guards the mouth of Peniche harbour and was built from 1557 as a coastal defence against seaborne attacks by the English and French and raids by Barbary pirates. The original structure, influenced by the coastal castles built by England’s King Henry VIII, was enlarged in 1645 into an irregular star-shaped artillery fort. New gun batteries were added in the early-1800s, but when the Congress of Vienna brought peace to Europe in 1815, the fort lost its military importance. The Fortaleza’s history includes a siege in 1589, while under Spanish control, by English admiral Sir Francis Drake, damage from the 1755 Lisbon Earthquake, fighting in the early-1800s Peninsula War and Portuguese Civil War, an 1837 gunpowder blast that destroyed the Governor’s House, and its use as a refuge for former Portuguese colonists. The fortress was also a political prison, holding German and Austrian nationals during World War I and communists and other opponents of the authoritarian Estado Novo (Second Republic) regime led by António de Oliveira Salazar from 1933 to 1974. Despite being held in high security, communist leader Álvaro Cunhal and other dissidents escaped by descending from the walls on ropes made from bed sheets. Portugal returned to democracy after a military coup in 1974. The fortress is now a municipal museum telling the town’s story and also, as the National Museum of Resistance and Freedom, celebrating the fight against fascism.
Size: 4912px × 7360px
Location: Peniche, Leiria District, Centro Region, Portugal.
Photo credit: © Terence Kerr / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
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