This picturesque Alentejo town, composed of narrow streets and white limewashed houses, holds within it the memory of the old and powerful Military Order of Avis. After the town had been captured from the Moors in 1211, the land was given by the king Dom Afonso II to Fernando Anes, the Master of the Friars of Évora, the future Order of Avis, with the aim of populating the region and building the castle, which took place between 1214 and 1223. As you walk around the town, you will find three of the castle’s six original towers: Torre da Rainha (the Queen’s Tower), Torre de Santo António (St. Anthony’s Tower) and Torre de São Roque (St. Rock’s Tower), as well as some sections of the mediaeval wall that have been incorporated into the town’s houses. At the top of the granite hill, surrounded by the water of a nearby river, Avis thus came into being under the protection of the monastery of the order that gave the town its name.