Silves and Lisbon

Just a quick post on our last few days in Portugal. Although it took us almost six weeks to finish these, who knows when we will have another trip to post about? So, maybe better to draw it out a bit.

On our last day in the Algarve region, we drove to a small town called Silves, which has a really impressive Moorish castle that sits high on a hill overlooking the town (great defensive position). Although the Moors built and occupied the castle between the 8th and 13th centuries, the site was used as a fortification going back to the Romans in around 200 BCE.

While there is not a lot to see at the castle (other than the structure itself), there was some interesting sculpture being displayed along with an exhibit about the Iberian Lynx, a species that used to roam the Iberian Peninsula and what is now southern France in large numbers, but nearly went extinct due to over-hunting and the destruction of its habitat. Although still an endangered species, an effort to reintroduce the Iberian Lynx has had some success. It was an interesting, if strangely placed, exhibit.

Overall, it was a beautiful day, and the views were spectacular.

After the castle, even though wine is not yet a significant industry in the Algarve, we went to find a nearby winery. While it seemed like we were driving through the middle of nowhere, with nothing but citrus trees around us, we did eventually find the Quinta dos Vales winery, and did a lovely tasting sitting outside chatting with a couple of Canadians. While our discussion did touch on US politics, this was early enough (February 25), that the coronavirus did not even come up (it is actually difficult to remember the time when the coronavirus and its related disruptions were not the center of every conversation).

In addition, the gardens of the winery had a large number of interesting sculptures, one of which allowed Shana to show off the value of her yoga practice:

The next day, we left the Algarve and flew to Lisbon where we would spend two nights and a day. Although we had previously been there, bad planning (and bad weather) caused us to miss one of the primary tourists sites in the city: the Jeronimos Monastery. The Monastery, which was part of the Order of Saint Jerome (a monastic order that now is almost gone with only two small monasteries in Spain remaining), is a spectacular building with an impressive cloister:

Other than viewing the building architecture, the most interesting thing at the Monastery was a room containing an exhibition of large boards that traced the history of the world, Portugal and the Monastery together. We spent quite a bit of time there and still did not have enough time to read or absorb most of the information.

Finally, since we were back in Lisbon, we revisited two culinary favorites in the city. First, we went for pizza at Forno d'Oro, which may be the best Neapolitan-style pizza we have ever had outside of Italy; and second, we went back to the Lisbon Winery for another wine tasting curated by our Portuguese wine guru, Adriana. It was fantastic once again, and we did bring back two bottles of wine to enjoy (not enough), but I told Shana it would be fun to live in Lisbon for a few months and do a weekly class with Adriana to really learn about the many grape varietals that are only grown in Portugal. Maybe someday.

More to come, despite being confined to our apartment,

Jeff and Shana