Amoreira Aqueduct

About this place

The Amoreira Aqueduct is a 16th- and 17th-century stone aqueduct that carries water into the town of Elvas in Portugal's Alentejo region. Its tallest arches pass the edge of town about 1 km from the centre in a straight line. When the town's wells were drying up in the late 15th century, the plan was made to bring water from the Amoreira springs about 8 km away. Work began in 1529, and in 1537 King John III sent the architect Francisco de Arruda to revise the design. Building stopped many times for lack of money before the aqueduct was inaugurated, together with the Fonte da Misericórdia fountain, on 23 June 1622. The aqueduct runs 7,054 metres from its spring to the Chafariz do Jardim fountain, 1,683 metres of it on arcades, with 833 arches in all. In its highest stretches the arches stack in up to four tiers, carried on rectangular piers and strengthened with semicircular and pyramid-shaped buttresses, and the town's coat of arms appears on it in marble or tile. Visitors walk along the huge arches at the edge of town and stand beneath them to take in their height, photographing them from the road and from the walls of Elvas. It is open at all hours, and Alentejo summers are very hot, so spring and autumn suit a visit best.