Serpa

Serpa crowns a hill east of the Guadiana, surrounded by walls that enclose its oldest streets and the church of Santa Maria. King Denis ordered the castle rebuilt and the town's walls extensively remodeled from 1295, incorporating parts of earlier Islamic defenses. During the Portuguese Restoration War in the seventeenth century, John IV had the fortifications strengthened with bastions to meet the demands of a new age of warfare. The gates of Beja and Moura remain among the entrances through the medieval circuit.