The Castle of Castro Laboreiro (Castelo de Castro Laboreiro) is located in the civil parish of Castro Laboreiro, in the municipality of Melgaço. It is the ruins of a Romanesque castle with a belt of walls around a central keep with a cistern.
In the 9th century, Alfonso III of Asturias, donated the settlement of Castro Laboreiro and the castro to Count Hermenegildo, grandfather of Saint Rudesind, for his defeat of the Visigoth King of Hispania, Witiza. During the reign of the Galician count, the castro was adopted as a castle, but would eventually fall into the possession of the Moors.
In 1144, Afonso Henriques reconquered the redoubt, and from 1145 his forces began the task of restoring and expanding the defenses: it was Sancho I of Portugal who finally completed the project in the 12th century. The efforts were for not, as the Leonese raised the castle in 1212, during their invasion. In 1290, Denis of Portugal began the reconstruction, with emphasis on defense from its neighbors.
The castle had, around 1506, five rectangular towers surrounding their central keep, which was preceded by the cistern in the north. Another, unidentified, construction was erected to the south.
In a surprise attack, Baltazar Pantoja took the castle after four hours of skirmishes in May 1666. He left Governor Pedro Esteves Ricarte in charge of the citadel, until it was retaken by the 3rd Count of Prado, Francisco de Sousa.
The King, citing its historical importance, decided to conserve the castle, in a response to his partner Michel Lescole, rather than deactivate it. Following the restoration of peace, in 1715, the castle was decommissioned. In 1801, troops occupied and defended the castle using four military pieces.
The castle is located on an isolated hilltop 1,033 metres above the Minho and Lima Rivers. It has an oval plan, oriented north-south, with the remains of the walls erected over cliffs and crags, sometimes zig-zagging, which corresponded to the ancient towers.
The principal entrance is the Gate of the Sun which opens to the east, while the 'traitors' gate', the Gate of the Frog as it was known, in the north. The east-west courtyard is closed and accessible from a footbridge that was used to gather cattle and property during invasions. It is around these walls that ruins of the ancient cistern remain.
References:Towering 52 meters above the sea, Bengtskär lighthouse is the tallest one in Scandinavia. The building started in in 1905 after the shipwreck of S/S Helsingfors and was completed in 1906. The lighthouse was designed by architect Florentin Granholm. On December a special petrol lantern, designed and built in Paris, was brought to Bengtskär and installed atop the tower.
German fleet bombarded Bengstkär in the First World War in 1914. Since the Gulf of Finland was heavily mined, it was not until 1919 that the surrounding seas were declared safe for shipping, that the light was lit again.
After the war the military value of Bengtskär increased as part of the defence system of independent Finland. In Second World War (1941) Soviet Union made a suprise attack to island. After a bloody battle, the small Finnish garrison emerged victorious. Intermittent repairs to the facility continued during the post-war period.