Forte do Alqueirão, the biggest fort in the Lines of Torres.

[Pedro]

Went for a little ride with @Sofia today, to check out the biggest fortification on the Lines of Torres, which is quite close to her home. It was a pretty awesome winter day today, the weather was perfect and we took no pictures of the ride itself because we were running out of day light, but it's a little gem of an area with rolling green hills that doesn't seem to belong to center Portugal but still within the great Lisbon area. I realize this report has too many pictures of embankments and of myself, but bare with it, I'm not one for spending too much time looking at historic things and this really peaked my interest, more so as I didn't really know what to expect nor where we were going at first.

The Forte Grande (Big Fort) or Forte do Alqueirão was the biggest fort in the Lines of Torres used by the Portuguese / British army to hold back the French, led by General Wellington. They built two lines of fortifications along the hills from Torres Vedras to Vila Franca de Xira, this is the most important if not only by being the biggest. (I think, look it up if you're interested, I know very little History)

There's a couple of kms of sort of loose gravel with a couple of ruts climbing from the road to the fort, so Sofia left the Speed Triple and it's Supercorsa tires down below and rode up with me. Here I am annoyed on a work call, she made herself entertained exploring my different moods through the whole event 

 

 

 

 

We rode up next to the old stone road, probably built along with the fort, I was happy to have nice smooth dirt and not those bumpy big rocks, me examining the old road on foot and not really caring much for it:

 

Wouldn't want to ride up this, as always the rocks look bigger in reality than they do in Pictures, bringing supplies on horse carts up this must have been a chore.

 

Give me the right smooth road anytime:

 

 

Parked right by an embankment

 

 

There is a geodesic mark inside the fort, and on top of that they built a cool viewpoint from which you get reference point to all the other forts as well as a great view.

 

 

 

And then a walk around checking out the defense structures and ruins:

 

 

 

Cannon embrasures, and how they look now:

 

 

 

To me, the most impressive thing about the Lines of Torres, is how quick they could transmit a message over a long distance:

 

 

 

I got a kick out of the drawings, they really made it easy to imagine how the ruins looked back when in use, so I tried to take a picture of some of the ruins from the same angle as the drawing was made, like the below one of a Powder Magazine:

 

 

 

 

Or this one:

 

 

 

 

And my favorite one, the "Governor's House", which was a small house used as an office, with a division for supposedly storing maps and charts, and a room for meetings.

 

 

 

I made a point of standing in Wellington´s meeting room, nobody showed up 

 

 

Afternoon was getting on, and we rode back before the sun started to go down, stopping on the way to buy dog medicines by the vet pharmacy.

 

Good little ride, it was today!

[XTreme]

Excellent Pedro.......really unusual place!

[Catteeclan]

Enjoyed that thanks.

[boboneleg]

10 hours ago, Pedro said:

Afternoon was getting on, and we rode back before the sun started to go down, stopping on the way to buy dog medicines by the vet pharmacy.

Well at least you didn't whinge about having to go to Baza to get them

[boboneleg]

Great RR Pedro, I love that sort of stuff

[Pedro]

2 hours ago, boboneleg said:

Great RR Pedro, I love that sort of stuff

I have to say, I don’t usually spend a lot of time looking at History stuff, but these Line of Torres forts are obviously in scenic locations, with a little dirtroad to get there after some nice roads, so they are growing on me.

[XTreme]

7 minutes ago, Pedro said:

I have to say, I don’t usually spend a lot of time looking at History stuff, but these Line of Torres forts are obviously in scenic locations, with a little dirtroad to get there after some nice roads, so they are growing on me.

The one that seems to get the most attention from non-members browsing is the Cold War one!

[Catteeclan]

2 hours ago, Pedro said:

I have to say, I don’t usually spend a lot of time looking at History stuff, but these Line of Torres forts are obviously in scenic locations, with a little dirtroad to get there after some nice roads, so they are growing on me.

Like this sort of thing and I've just discovered some castle ruins a few miles away I haven't visited before.

[Pedro]

8 hours ago, XTreme said:

The one that seems to get the most attention from non-members browsing is the Cold War one!

That’s probably because of the netflix tv show that came up a couple of months ago, the portuguese name being “Gloria”. It was pretty unknown history before that.

[Specs]

On 18/01/2022 at 13:35, Catteeclan said:

Like this sort of thing and I've just discovered some castle ruins a few miles away I haven't visited before.

Spring comes early there!  Just look at those flowers. 

[Catteeclan]

22 hours ago, Specs said:

Spring comes early there!  Just look at those flowers. 

OK that pic was plucked from the net.