Exploring Tavira

 Sun Oct 15

Sunrise from our balcony

Typical hotel buffet breakfast...

...including the coffee machine and fresh juices

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tavira is an attractive town with a long history dating back to the Phoenicians in the 12th C. BCE. It has the usual rabbit warren of Medieval cobbled streets, the remnants of a Moorish castle, and a really pleasant riverfront. We started the day (after the hotel’s buffet breakfast) on a self-guided walking tour. We started at the little museum, closed Sundays, headed to the Church of Misericoria, closed Sundays, hoped to see a short Fado presentation at the Fado com Historia, but it’s closed Sundays. The castle garden was open, and we climbed stone staircases up the castle walls for some great views. I’d been looking forward to checking out the Camera Obscura built in what was once a water tower, but that was too much to hope for on a Sunday. It’s a good thing both Elly and I take these things in stride. It was, “Oh, okay,” and on to the next disappointment.

The castle garden:

 

Done with the tour of the outsides of places, we decided to take a tourist boat ride to Tavira Island, a long sand spit just off the main shore. That was quite nice, motoring past flamingos feeding in salt flats, to arrive in what was to me a really weird beachy set-up. En mass with the hundred or so others from our boat, we walked 20 minutes along a concrete pathway to an area filled with restaurants, and then on to a boardwalk where you could buy a beer for 3 Euros and rent a chair to enjoy it in for 14. The golden beach was as wide and as long as any I’ve ever seen, and there were relatively few people there considering it was a Sunday when there’s nothing else to do.

Heaps of salt from the salt flats. I don't know what they do with the dirty stuff. Maybe you pay extra for minerals?

Those little white dots are flamingos, I promise.

I fail to find this beach scene appealing.

We stopped in a canopied taverna for a cold drink, then headed back to the boat. Talked politics on the boat with a couple from Northern Ireland taking a weekend break from home (what you can do when you live so close!).

I decided I wanted grilled octopus for my last dinner in the region. It is a specialty here, and a friend said the best meal they ever had was grilled octopus in the Algarve. Normally, I will not eat octopus, because it is apparently a creature of inordinate intelligence very different from our own. But travel and flavour have trounced my morals, and the bits of octopus I’ve tasted so far have been awfully good. Octopus tonight, and maybe never again.

(I could include a photo of my octopus, but it's rather gruesome to look at. Close your eyes and it's delicious.)