The youngest member of the travel party is a bit of an early bird and at 5:00 AM at the latest he thinks it’s time to get up and start playing. True to his habit, he woke up before the rooster crowed today and started playing relatively loudly and when he managed to wake us, the neighbors and their baby so that it started crying (yes, it’s terribly sensitive here) I decided to go out for a morning walk with him.
Lagos was stone-dead at that time of day and during my trip through the harbor and its surrounding areas I didn’t meet a single person, I continued towards the city and thought about visiting the fish market just when it opens. Good plan but since it’s Saturday it opens at 8:00 AM so I was almost two hours early. I continued through the old town and wandered into the residential areas so I had to use Google Maps to find my way back, all without encountering a single person. Despite the total lack of both light and people, you feel safe here and you don’t have to be afraid to take out your phone and check where the hell you are.
Once the sun had risen, I was back home and had breakfast, so we decided to go on a day trip to Silves, which is located a bit inland. Silves was previously (we’re talking a super long time ago, during the time of the Moors) the capital of the Algarve and can therefore be considered historically interesting. I personally thought it was a super cozy little village that had a mighty castle at the top, a massive church that was once a mosque (for all of you who complain about the conversion of Hagia Sophia) and a cozy little center where there was a market when we got there. The city itself is small, however, and you can go through all the sights in about an hour, add a coffee and a lunch and the day is done. The castle itself is definitely mighty on the outside but when you go inside it’s a little more meh, the archaeological museum is probably good, if you can speak Portuguese but still, I definitely recommend a visit if you’re nearby.
