Brief history of Alvorge Situated in the North of the municipality of Ansião, it bordesr the sub-municipalities of Santiago da Guarda, Torre de Vale de Todos and Lagarteira, which belong to Ansião ,and with the municipalities of Penela, Soure and Condeixa. Alvorge has an approx. area of 37,72 km2, with a population of 1.298 inhabitants. The first reference of Alvorge appears in 1141 in a document, where D. Afonso Henriques (1st King of Portugal) donates in his will the farm of Alvorge and its tower, situated in the Land of Ladeia, to the Monastery of Santa Cruz de Coimbra. The word ‘Alvorge’, which means small fort or little tower, goes back to the Arab occupation . The Christian settling of the lands of Ladeia (a kind of moving border, sometimes belonging to the Christians, sometimes to the Arabs), which included Alvorge, had begun with D. Afonso Henriques, whose objective was to widen the Portuguese border to the south. For such he ordered the construction of the Castle of Germanelo in 1142, and promoted the settling of Christians in these lands by giving tax exemption , and full pardon to all who had committed crimes of robbery or murder, with the sole condition that the settlers establish in this area and cultivate it. There is a legend associated with the Castle of the Germanelo; according to which there were two giant brothers, ‘germanelos’ (that means little brothers), living on their own mountains, one in the Gerumelo to the south, and the other, Melo, to the north. They were blacksmiths and as they had only one hammer, they shared it between themselves. One day, the Gerumelo with a bad temper sent the hammer to his brother with such a force, that it broke in mid air. The hammer head fell at the bottom of the Melo mount, where there appeared a spring with a taste of iron in the water; the handle that was made of ‘zambujo’ (wild olive tree) fell a bit further away, and gave origin to the village of ‘Zambujal’ (meaning wild olive grove). The history of Alvorge goes back to more remote times with signs of occupation prior to the Roman empire; It was the Romans who constructed the tower (of which nothing remains today) for defence of the water spring in Alvorge. It is in this place that one can see the ruins of a medieval palace built by Portuguese noblemen descendents from D. Pedro and Inês de Castro. There are no more than a few walls remaining with the coat of arms, indicating how magnificent this place had once been. This is also where another piece history can still be found; the old trail to the ruins, once a main roman road connecting Aeminium ( Coimbra) and Conimbriga to Sellium ( Tomar), is part of the ancient and historic ‘Caminho de Santiago’, the pilgrins way to Santiago de Compostela, on which we can still see pilgrims occasionally.