Silves, its castle and cathedral… and storks

In the morning, we got up, showered, and headed out again in search of adventure. This time I had done a little more research and planning, I had had a barrage of complaints about pseudo-monolithic monuments and snail farms from the midget population of the family, and so we opted for Silves. More specifically, we headed towards its castle, the Castelo de Silves, which dates back to the time of the Moors, and its cathedral. An easy drive – once you figure out the delay on the GPS, it’s easier to ignore it – and the countryside was very nice.
 
The castle dates back to a period when Silves was a strong occupation base and prosperous commercial centre under Roman rule. In 716, the Moorish conquest brought big changes to the fortress that the Romans had built above the city. Situated on the highest point of the hill on which the city stands, the fortress was reinforced with a new walled enclosure with towers and armour, which extended along the right bank of the stream. Wikipedia told me that the first fortress on this site consisted of a Lusitanian “castro”, which at first sounded excruciatingly painful, but which I later discovered was a hillfort. The Phoenicians, Greeks, and Carthaginians are believed to have been knocking around the site at one time or another, but that in or around around 201 B.C. the Romans conquered Silves, transforming it into a citadel and commercial centre, and so it prospered for the next five centuries, give or take a week. In 716, the Moors came and reinforced the existing fortifications with a new series of walls, and from there was a period of toing-and-froing between Muslims and Christians, until in the 14th Century, Alfonso III took definitive control. Having explained this to Ottawacker Jr. in the car, while he feigned sleep, I felt he was in a good place to appreciate the historical significance of the visit.
 
The castle was good – but not spectacular – and worth the visit. There is a huge statue of Sancho I at the entrance – and a pathway that takes you right the way around the outer edges of the ramparts and lets you see the ongoing excavations in the heart of the fortress. But there wasn’t much else to hold us, so we wandered out and had a coffee and orange juice at the Café Inglés, just opposite the cathedral, and then continued on to see what was inside that particular building. It, too, was very pleasant, but a bit underwhelming. The style was more rustic than I’d expected. The light in the main chapel was stunning, and there were a couple of sarcophagi tombs of a crusader and his wife in the entrance that were interesting. But you really notice the lack of investment in Portuguese patrimony over the years.
 
Perhaps the most astounding thing about Silves was its wildlife – and, more specifically, the white storks that seemed to be nesting anywhere. As we had walked up to the castle from the municipal car park (again, free of charge, Canada take note), I’d seen a series of nests in an old deserted building. Then I saw a little movement, and realised that all of the nests were inhabited. Then the storks stood up – perhaps spooked, or perhaps hunting for something (do storks eat mice?) They were such incredibly beautiful and large birds. When we made it up to the castle and were walking around the ramparts, we had a different view of the birds – and for the first time, I could see how many of them there were. It was a large colony of storks, a society of storks (or whatever the collective noun for them is). A Silvestry of storks, perhaps? When they flew away, the noise of their wings flapping was quite amazing.
 
We headed back, via Silves train station for Rain Man, and the Intermarché for me, and had lunch. Again, the afternoon was spent on the beach, walking. And then, before we knew it, incredibly, it was already our final evening in Alvor. We went back to the beach and watched the sun go down over the Atlantic, and then I got dragged back to play table tennis with Ottawacker Jr., before cooking dinner and stretching out in the adult-sized bed.