| Once important frontier town standing at the mouth of the River Guadiana on the Portuguese-Spanish border. The centre of Vila Real is charming and a superb example of the Marquês de Pombal's national building programme after the earthquake of 1755. |
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| Vila Real de Santo Antonio, the once important frontier town standing at the mouth of the River Guadiana on the Portuguese-Spanish border, has today lost a little of its former glory due to European Union and to the fact that in 1991 a bridge over the Guadiana was completed just to the north, which tended to undermine the town’s function as a ferry point. |
| However, the centre of Vila Real is charming and interesting as a superb example of the Marquês de Pombal’s national building programme after the earthquake of 1755. |
| The original settlement, called Vila de Santo António de Aremilha was washed into the sea during the 16th century and 17th centuries (along with some further stretches of Algarvian coastline). Undaunted by this slight setback, the settlement managed to revive itself as a humble but nevertheless busy fishing port just in time for the famous earthquake of 1755 to annihilate it completely. |
| On account of the importance of Vila Real as a fishing centre and to fend off competition from the nearby Spanish fishing port of Ayamonte, in 1774, the Marquês de Pombal ordered the construction of an entirely new town which used Lisbon’s Baixa quarter as its template. |