Portugal Postcard's - Cabo de São Vicente, Sagres

 Cabo de São Vicente (the Cape of Saint Vincent) is the most  southwesterly extremity of Europe and a must see place in Southern Portugal!

This wind blasted and storm pounded  headland is just what visitors expect, for what was considered, up until  the 14th century, the end of the known world. The jagged cliffs rise 60  meters from the ferocious seas and high above guarding the busy  shipping lines is one of Europe’s brightest lighthouses that can be seen  60 miles away. 

Henry the Navigator, the father of Portugal’s 17th century Golden Age of  Discovery, supposedly spent much of his time based here planning  voyages that mapped and explored the unknown region of western Africa.  Cabo Sao Vincente is a wild, windswept and remote landscape, and  tourists who visit won’t be disappointed. 

The lighthouse originates from 1846 and was constructed on the old ruins  of a Franciscan monastery. This monastery paid homage to Saint Vicente,  whose bones were reputedly found in the cliffs and to whom the headland  is named after.   

The bones of Saint Vicente were moved from the shire at Cabo Sao Vicente  to Lisbon in 1147 as part of populous propaganda activity to bolster  the Christian conquest of Portugal. The destructive 1755 earthquake  badly damaged the monastery and this was never repaired. The two sacred  statues of Saint Vincent and Francis Xavier were moved to the church of  Nossa Senhora da Graça in Sagres.   

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Take care, Leo