埃尔瓦什附近的格拉萨圣母堡，葡萄牙 Nossa Senhora da Graça Fort near Elvas, Portugal (© Luis Pina Photography/Shutterstock)

埃尔瓦什附近的格拉萨圣母堡，葡萄牙 Nossa Senhora da Graça Fort near Elvas, Portugal (© Luis Pina Photography/Shutterstock)

A Portuguese fort takes a star turn

Perched on a strategic hillside, high above the hot, dry plains of eastern Portugal, the Nossa Senhora da Graça Fort has been called a masterpiece of 18th-century military architecture. The thick wall that surrounds the fortress are shaped in a star pattern, with pentagonal bastions jutting out from the curtain wall at the corners. We're looking at one of those bastions in the center of our image.

A stone's throw from the Spanish border, the Nossa Senhora da Graça Fort was built to defend the garrison border town of Elvas. It's a region shaped by war. The Spanish laid siege to the area during the Portuguese Restoration War (1640-1668), but after the Nossa Senhora da Graça Fort was built a century later, the town was never defeated. With its 144 cannons, the fort resisted an attack by another wave of Spanish forces during the 1801 War of the Oranges and 10 years later drove back an invading French army during the Peninsular War.

Eventually the fort became a political prison, which it remained until 1974, when it was abandoned and fell into ruin. But it was restored after 2012, when UNESCO recognized the entire historical center of Elvas—including the Nossa Senhora da Graça Fort, a few other nearby forts, and the 16th-century Amoreira Aqueduct—as a World Heritage Site.

葡萄牙要塞有一个星形转弯

坐落在战略山坡上，高出葡萄牙东部炎热干燥的平原，Nossa Senhora da Graç堡垒被称为18世纪军事建筑的杰作。围绕堡垒的厚墙呈星形，五角形堡垒从墙角的幕墙中伸出。我们看到的是图像中心的一个堡垒。

离西班牙边境只有一箭之遥，Nossa Senhora da Graç一座堡垒是为了保卫守军边境城镇埃尔瓦斯而建的。这是一个战争形成的地区。在葡萄牙复辟战争（1640-1668）期间，西班牙人包围了该地区，但在诺萨塞诺拉大格拉之后ç一个世纪后建了一座堡垒，这个城镇从未被打败。在1801年的橘子战争中，这座拥有144门大炮的堡垒抵抗了西班牙军队的另一波进攻，10年后在半岛战争中击退了入侵的法国军队。

最终，这座堡垒变成了一座政治监狱，一直保留到1974年，当时它被遗弃并陷入废墟。但在2012年联合国教科文组织承认整个埃尔瓦斯历史中心，包括诺萨塞诺拉达格拉之后，它被修复了ç一个堡垒，附近的其他几个堡垒，以及16世纪的阿莫雷拉渡槽作为世界遗产。