Wife and I decided to spend the Freedom Day holiday in the town of Tavira. Why did we choose Tavira to spend the holiday? The better question would be "Why didn't Wife and you know that it was a national holiday when you decided to visit Tavira?" This is actually an ongoing theme in the de-I/Wife travel methodology...the showing up in various places only to find that some holiday or festival is taking place. One would think that we might start researching the national holidays and celebrations of the places we visit? Nah. Too much work.
Tavira is considered to be a break from the super touristy over condo developed beachfront towns of the Algarve coast. So it was no wonder that for the holiday, there was a distinctively local feel.
We started of with the obligatory visit to the Old Town. As with almost all the towns we've visited, the church, (Santa Maria) was built on the foundations of a mosque from the Moorish times and the castle was built on Moorish foundations as well.
The convent (Pousada)
The castle ruins
Santa Maria (sadly closed so we could not go in as the interior is supposed to be quite nice)
View of the town from the castle
And just a picture
This is here for historical interests. The excavations have found elements that date to the Phoenicians (800 BC, through the Greeks, Romans, Visigoths, Moors, and finally the 16th century Portuguese. That's 2,300 years of history in one building!
Church of Misericordia where I indulge in my ongoing interest in studying the detail of the sculpture and try to imagine what was going through the head of the artist when they did them.
The only remaining City Gate from Medieval times
Street Scenes from the Main Town Plaza
The Old Roman Bridge
The Video Guide to Making 'Old Bread'
Bread filled with either chorizo, pizza stuff (cheese, tomato, olive), or garlic butter and cheese. There was a non-stop line to get these.
