Aldeias Históricas de Portugal

Villages

Solar dos Cabrais, currently the Municipal Library and Archives

Belmonte

Belmonte

It used to be the Cabral family home but now houses the municipal library and archives. It is a two-storey longitudinal building with a façade bordered by pilasters, a plain cornice and windows with straight lintels. Over the door in the main façade there is the coat of arms of the Counts of Belmonte, the only one that managed to survive the mutilation of all the coats of arms in the town, as it was only pout up after the troubled times of the First Republic. The Museum of the Discoveries was built from scratch in the grounds. It is an interactive museum that transports visitors through a 500-year history of the construction of a country and its nature. The exhibition addresses the history of the Portuguese discoveries as an element that unified the New World, the voyage of discovery of Brazil, the construction of a sister nation, being Portuguese and much more.