Belmonte

Belmonte is the birthplace of Pedro Alvares Cabral, the Portuguese navigator who discovered Brazil.

Belmonte is also the home to the last remaining community of Sephardic Jews called Marranos,

who maintained their hidden Jewish traditions almost intact for centuries, becoming an exceptional crypto-Jewish community. Only in the 1970s did the community establish contact with the Jews of Israel and officialised Judaism as their religion.

Centum Cellas

The Tower of Centum Cellas,
Municipality of Belmonte, district of Castelo Branco, Portugal.

It is a unique lytic monument currently in ruins, its initial construction dating of the first century AD.
Over the centuries it has attracted the attention of scholars and curious, inspiring many different legends and theories.
One of the traditions, states that the building was a prison with a hundred cells (hence the name), where St. Cornelius would have been captive.
On its primitive function, it was believed to be a Praetorium (Roman camp).
However, archaeological prospecting campaigns in its surroundings, that took place in the 1960s and 1990s, indicate that it is more likely a Villa, the tower being representative of the “pars urbana”, surrounded by a rustic area,still largely to be excavated.