As the main defense of the crossing of the Alto Minho river to Galicia, The Castle of Melgaço constitutes the most northern sentry point in Portugal from the twelfth century.
The construction of the castle dates back to 1170 by order of the first King of Portugal Afonso Henriques (1112–1185). He granted a Foral charter to the town at the same time, encouraging the development of the town.
Afonso III (1248–1279) granted to the village in 1258 a second Foral Charter, promising privileges to the town.
In 1361 the traffic between Portugal and Galicia was required to pass through Melgaço demonstrating its importance at the time.
In the context of the 1383-1385 Portuguese succession crisis, the village and its castle followed the northern region of Portugal by expressing loyalty to Beatriz. It fell into Spanish hands but in early 1387, then governed by a Spanish mayor, the town suffered the harassment of the Portuguese troops under the command of John I (1385–1433), resisting their take over for nearly two months.
In 1492, Melgaço was one of only five places along the Spanish-Portuguese border where the Sephardic Jews expelled from Spain could enter Portugal. Still under the reign of King Manuel I, village defenses and its castle layout are figured in the Duarte de Armas, made up of three towers and two gates.
The castle has plant in circular shape, unusual in the country, divided into three precincts. The walls, where they tear two doors are surmounted by prismatic battlements and reinforced by three towers, the main one being that is focused on the urban core, pentagonal section. The set is dominated by the keep. The keep has a square shaped plan, isolated in the center of the parade ground. Both she and the surrounding wall were fully rebuilt, inferring to its Romanesque feature only the design of this set: a solid square tower isolated in the center of the walled enclosure. The tower is divided internally into three floors, illuminated by some chinks. The crown is made by a shot in counter with battlements, now reclassified as lookout of the archaeological museum established in the tower dependencies.
Regarding the doors, they are two: the main gate to the west, larger, go to the square of weapons, which opens a cistern, where he would find the commander's residence; and the betrayal door to the north, smaller. They remain part of the Barbican on the main door and towers that flanked one of the doors of the fence. Thanks to recent archaeological research, which laid bare significant stretches of gothic fence, we can now make the idea of the original design.
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Saint-Georges de Boscherville Abbey is a former Benedictine abbey. It was founded in about 1113 by Guillaume de Tancarville on the site of an earlier establishment of secular canons and settled by monks from the Abbey of Saint-Evroul. The abbey church made of Caumont stone was erected from 1113 to 1140. The Norman builders aimed to have very well-lit naves and they did this by means of tall, large windows, initially made possible by a wooden ceiling, which prevented uplift, although this was replaced by a Gothic vault in the 13th century. The chapter room was built after the abbey church and dates from the last quarter of the 12th century.
The arrival of the Maurist monks in 1659, after the disasters of the Wars of Religion, helped to get the abbey back on a firmer spiritual, architectural and economic footing. They erected a large monastic building one wing of which fitted tightly around the chapter house (which was otherwise left as it was).