April 25 - It's Monday - it must be Tavira!

 We were hoping more things would be open on a Monday - but it turns out it is a Holiday - Freedom Day.  Many dignitaries were wondering about sporting poppies in their lapels.  In the tourist area there was one street  sporting many paper poppies along the road,  We are using the Rick Steves Portugal guide book, but have been disappointed that so many areas we want to see are not include in the book. But Google does not disappoint.  Tavia is in the RS book - and included a walking tour.  We did not follow the exact path recommended, but did see most of the interesting things.  Our parking spot was near to the castle and the Church of Santa Maria - so we started there.

Scene from the Church of Santa Maria

The church was closed - so we only got photos of the outside.

On to the castle.  It is free to view - mostly because not much is left of it.  Just some walls you can climb up for city views.  

The gate into the castle.

And a different views of the Church of Santa Maria from up on the castle walls.

These iconic chimneys are everywhere in the Algarve.  Unfortunately the owners decided to mess with my image by placing a lot of air conditioning units close by.

The castle wall and entrance gate.

The castle was built by the Moors starting in the 10th to 11th Centuries.  More changes were made between the 13 to 16th centuries.  

The walls of the city fell into ruins after the 16th century as they were no longer useful for defense.  This city gate still remains.

The gate leads to the Grand Square.

If you look closely way in the background you will see the large paper poppies decorating the road along the square.

This bridge is known as the "Roman Bridge", but it may not be Roman.  It was here before the Moors arrived.  It is now a pedestrian walkway.

You can see the level of the river (Rio Gilao) has fallen by looking at the location of the stairs off one of the end houses.

These tents house a market of sorts.  Mostly souvenir type of stuff - no food.

We passed by this local production - but I only got one photo - as the people sitting behind me kept telling me to get out of the way - at least that is what I am interpreting that they said in Portuguese and not something nastier.

We did stop here for lunch - there was always a line.  I am not sure if it was because it was so good - or if it was because so few food places were open.  They sold pizza, sausage and garlic rolls.  As is common in Europe, it was mostly bread with very little filling. I took one bite of the garlic roll and that was enough for me.

This guy and gal kept walking around the area playing the one song they knew.  Accordions seem to be common here - and at other locations there was much more variation of songs.  I always find this interesting because my older brother and I took accordion lessons until about middle school.

We are lucky - the Euro is at about 1.07 to the U.S. dollar.  So our money goes much further.

Our walk along the river.