Silves

The main attraction here, a fairy tale castle, was a huge disappointment. The entire site was under construction and there wasn’t anything to see. It was a complete waste of time. Luckily, that was the last thing we did before heading back to the van. The lady at the tourist office was extremely nice and was completely aware that her town had barely anything to offer, though she was sure we would love it. She suggested that we walk to the small town square, have a cup of coffee from the old coffee shop and have a look at the roman tower in the square before making it past the two churches which lead to the castle. We took her advice, but weren’t sure about the “stopping for a coffee” as we have a schedule to keep. When we arrived in the square; there was some debate if we were in the right spot at first, but climbing a flight of stairs proved that we were indeed in the right spot, so we had to walk back down. Here we learnt that the town provides free WiFi so we sat on a bench and used the internet. The square was so small, probably the size of my parents backyard, that we were sitting right next to the old coffee shop patio. Since we were no longer in a rush we tucked ourselves into a bistro table and I proceeded to enjoy two lovely cups of coffee. Julie had lost her sunglasses at some point and realized it during the second cup. Frantically she retraced her steps and eventually made her way to the bench we were previously sitting at. It turns out that an older gentlemen sitting on the bench had them and was cleaning them off and waiting for the owner to return. All in all, despite the castle being a dud, the town was extremely lovely.