Silves, Portugal

During the planning stages of the vacation, I asked whether anyone wanted to take a boat ride. The women said yes so I booked a tour. Then, we get to Portugal and no one remembered agreeing to the boat tour.  We were having a lazy morning. We finally made it to the beach and it was awesome. No one wanted to leave and I was very worried that no one would have fun.

Our tour left out of Portimao. It was a beautiful port town that we didn't have enough time to explore.

Our boat ride was timed with the tides. We headed up the river Arade on an adventure. I don't know why I didn't take a photo of the boat, but it was lovely. They served refreshments on the way to Silves.

In the winter, there are a lot of birds to see. But, we still saw a few. On our visit, we saw storks

these birds

lots of abandoned farms (tourism is now the preferred occupation)

and a pretty blue heron.

We were lucky to visit Silves during the renaissance festival. Though, to truly enjoy the festival I think you need to visit outside the boat tour. The celebration was just getting started when we had to leave.

There seemed to be a lot of North African/Moroccan influence at the festival.

We had a lot of fun wandering the town, picking up some gifts and enjoying the local flavors.

It was a lovely, relaxing afternoon. I think the guys enjoyed their time on the links as well.

I'm glad we took the opportunity to share ginjinha with Cecilia & Arthrina because it was the last time we saw a stand on the shared portion of our trip.

There is an old castle you can tour in town, but we skipped it.

Instead, we shopped. Cork is a huge commodity in Portugal and it was fun finding unique trinkets.

I loved these cork planters.

We also tried several traditional desserts. I don't remember what they were called, but the banana chocolate one was really good.

With a late lunch on the way home, we were full by the time the guys picked us up. We had plans to visit the Sardine Festival in this town but drove around forever without finding it.

We switched gears and headed to neighboring Alvor (these are octopus pots). With soccer games blaring across the cobblestone streets, the British influence was evident. I think this was Arthrina's favorite town because of the night life (though to be fair, we didn't go out much at night. maybe all towns are this lively).

While the guys enjoyed dinner, we sampled a staple of Portuguese cuisine. Our waitress was truly shocked when we had no idea what to do with our plate of sardines. 

We were all pleasantly surprised that the fish was tastier than we were anticipating.