Day trip to Lagos and Silves

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We drove to Lagos from Tavira. There is not much to see along the highway and the main thing to be said is that there isn't much traffic -- I never saw so much as a hint of a traffic jam in this part of the world, despite being here in the middle of the tourist season -- maybe the price of gas is keeping people off the roads. Lagos itself was quite crowded, with good reason, very beautiful location. We went for a walk along the cliff and visited the fort -- obligatory it would seem in every Portuguese town. (luckily I like forts, palaces, castles, etc.) The wind sculptures were nice. The coast has lots of big rock formations and you can walk all along the coast by walking through gaps in the rocks that connect the beaches. We enjoyed the view for a while and then headed off inland to Silves for lunch.

Silves is another nice, picturesque Portuguese town with a fort overlooking the houses. We had our lunch and had a walk around town. We had just missed the Medieval festival which was probably just as well. It was never very crowded anywhere which is really refreshing. I found a souvenir shop which seemed to cover just about the whole of Portuguese handicrafts and bought a pretty ceramic jar for my dressing table. The Portuguese do not seem to be particularly tourist oriented -- they have very few souvenirs and they don't really seem to care if you buy or not.

The countryside is a bit dry after the summer but I imagine that in winter it is green and very scenic. Next time I visit I will come off season. Still the weather was hot but bearable and not too humid. We had a wander around up near the castle and then returned to Tavira.

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