Portugal Trip

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After breakfast we walked to the Grand mall where we all caught up on our
e-mail ­ and it’s just our luck that they have free Wi-Fi - and did a little
shopping. The afternoon was spent sight seeing around the town.
Appropriately, Tavira is known as the Little Venice of Portugal and rightly
so, it’s very beautiful. There are a multiple of bridges that span the Rio
Gilao river which runs through the town, two are strictly for pedestrians,
one being the Roman Bridge dating back to 1657.

On our walk we visited the Church of Misericordia, from 1541, it has
beautiful blue tiled walls inside showing you how to lead a good Christian
life. No pictures taking were allowed here.

Beside the church are the remains of the Palace of the Gallery, a 17th
century Baroque palace. We spent some time here taking pictures and enjoying
the beautiful little garden inside the palace walls where all the spring
flowers are in fragrant bloom.

We stopped for ice cream and a little break before taking the local
tourist trolley type train. It routes itself through old and new parts of
Tavira, and actually passes on the street where our apartment flat is
located. The train has rubber wheels but on cobble stone streets it is still
very bumpy ride.

We ended our day with a stop at the Brisa do Rio restaurant which is
renowned to be the best restaurant in Tavira and which just happens to be
located a couple of doors down from our apartment. Renita and Joce ordered
Golden Bream fish and Pete ordered Bass and Shrimp with orange sauce. All I
can tell you is that this restaurant lived up to it’s name, it was THE best
lunch yet. We hope to revisit this restaurant before leaving.

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