Aware of the privileged position of the castle and the close watch kept by the Moors, D. Palo Peres Correia, Portuguese dispatched some scouts to test the waters and habits of the population of the people in order to outline their assault plan. In the field, they managed to entice a Moorish of rare beauty, Maria Aires, which informed them practicing an ancient custom of the inhabitants of the region, to bathe on the beach of Amoreira at dawn on June 24.

Based on this information, the D. Palo arranged his men so that on the night of 23 to 24 that month, if conceal the neighboring valley to the castle, now known as Sancho valley, certainly in honor of the sovereign time, Sancho II of Portugal. Camouflaged with vegetation, they waited for the movement of the Moors towards the beach in the early hours. As soon as it began, Christians, still covered in darkness, embarked on the final approach to the assault on the village and castle unguarded. At this time, a girl, the granddaughter of an old woman who had stayed behind in the village, noting the unusual movement out of doors, ran to warn her grandmother that the bushes were walking. The old lady explained to her granddaughter the effects of the breeze on vegetation when surprised Christians burst through the doors, dominating the lady who even brought to the alarm, ringing a bell in the tower of the tank. Lords of the land, the Portuguese then raised the alarm, attracting supporters to a death trap inside the enclosure.

With the village won for the arms of Portugal, D. Palo, it states that touched by the charms of the beautiful Maria Aires, saved his life and honor, making him build a house in the immediate vicinity of the town that even today, in his memory, called Mareares.

In dominant position over the village and the river of Aljezur, although they are in one of the castles figured in the seven corners of paternal coat, it is almost unknown in the Portuguese tourist itineraries, in the case of one of the most significant monuments Algarve.

Recent archaeological research by the Archaeology Unit of Southwest Alentejo and Costa Vicentina Natural Park, in partnership with the Municipality of Aljezur, revealed that the early human occupation of the site dates back to prehistoric times, bringing to light layers with traces of Age Bronze (c. 3,000 AP), the Iron Age and the Roman period (between centuries IV and BC).

At the time of the Muslim invasion of the Iberian Peninsula, the course of the Aljezur river was navigable and this town constituted in important river port. Dates from this period, in the early stages (before the X century), the primitive fortification, which, in general, showed polygonal her subsisting significant sections of walls, a tower with a circular plan and the cistern. Later, in late stage in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, they were raised inside enclosure several residential structures and two silos. At this stage, the castle would have integrated the Almohad defensive system of the Silves region, which then stretched from the current councils of Lagoa and Albufeira to Aljezur and south of the Alentejo coast.