TE19 Iberian Adventure

Passing Time in Portugal

the recently excavated vaulted ‘Cistern of the Dogs’.

“It’s enchanted” Pedro winked. “At midnight, a Moorish princess can be heard crying, as she waits on a silver boat for her prince to break the spell.”

Though Al-Mutamid was forced to leave, Silves remained forever in his heart.

“His life followed the rise and fall of the Algarve,” Pedro reflected, “from triumphant kingship to bitter African exile.”

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Cobbled streets lead up to the 13thcentury burnt-ochre sandstone cathedral flanked by two Gothic towers. Inside, above gilded carvings and Templar tombs, the dome refracts the light.

“Itwasrebuiltaftertheearthquakethatflattenedall but20houses.” Pedro noted. “Some inhabitants were killed during mass.”

Today the once impregnatable Almohad castle walls are populated with jacaranda trees and bougainvillea poke from the ruins. Couples roamed the ramparts, camera lenses peaked through the crenulations of the Albarra-type towers that rise above the Northern slope. The Crusaders continuously attacked and Moorish Silves was sacked by King Leon, briefly recaptured by Amir al-Mu’minin, then besieged by King Sancho I, who is immortalised in stone outside the entrance. “He put an end to the Almohad Caliphate’s splendour,” Pedro 175