"Sagres and Cabo de Sao Vicente" a Sagres Travel Page by haiamisa

We made a day trip to Sagres and Cabo de Sao Vicente by car from Lagos on 14th September 2004 and as it was the end of the summer it was not too crowded. It was great to see the rocks,the beaches and the nature all around. We visited Henry the Navigator's Fortaleza and Capo de Sao Vincente.

Sagres and its cape were considered by the Portuguese as the far limit of the world. It was here in the 15th century that Prince Henry the Navigator made his recidence and set up a school of navigation. He gathered together the greatest astronomers, cartographers and adventurers of that time. Fernao de Magalhaes (Magellan), Pedro Alvares Cabral and Vasco da Gama all studied at Sagres and from the beach at Belixe -midway between the capse of Sagres and Sao Vicente - the first long caravels were launched, revolutionizing shipping with their wide hulls, small adaptable sails, and ability to sail close to the wind. Each year new expeditions were dispatched to penetrate a little further than their predecessors, and to resolve the great navigational enigma presented by the west coast of Africa, thereby laying the foundations of the country's overseas empire.
After Henry's death here in 1460, the centre of maritime studies was moved to Lisbon and Sagres slipped back into the obscurity from which it he had raised it. In the early 1980s, the forlorn one-street village began to attract a growing number of young backpackers and windsurfers, drawn by the string of magnificent, isolated local beaches. Now the main highway from Lagos has put Sagres within an easy reach and the inevitable trail of villas and apartments has followed. But it still is a great place, especially off the season.

After seeing the magnificient views the most interesting places to visit on this area are the Fortaleza which dominates the whole village and Cabo de Sao Vicente where almost certainly Henry established his School of Navigation. Today only a lighhouse and ruins of a 16th century Capuchin convent are to be seen. The lighhouse is the strongest in Europe.