Faro

Faro, the capital of the Algarve, was an important Moorish seaport. In 1249 Afonso III recaptured it from the Moors and promptly set about rebuilding the city walls. However, the walls could not protect the town from the British, who in 1596 sacked and burned it to the ground. One of the leaders of the expedition, the Earl of Essex, stayed in the Bishop’s Palace and helped himself to 200 of its priceless, leather-bound, gilt-tooled books. He took these back to England and gave them to his good friend, Sir Thomas Bodley, at Oxford, who was delighted to receive them for his now world-renowned Bodleian Library. After the British destroyed Faro, it was rebuilt, but the 1755 earthquake leveled it again. Today Faro is a sprawling commercial city. From a distance is appears as one skyscraper after another, but persevere and head straight to the historic old town adjacent to the harbor. At the north end of the harbor is the Maritime Museum with models of boats and ships. At the southern end of the harbor is the old walled town and at its heart is the Cathedral (Sé), beautifully decorated with 17th-century azulejos. Bordering one side of the square, the Bishop’s Palace is still in use and officially closed to the public, but we were able to take a peek at the magnificent azulejo-lined staircase. Just around the corner, the Archaeological Museum is housed in the lovely 16th-century Convento de Nossa Senhora da Assunção with its impressive cloisters. Here you find both Moorish and Roman artifacts (all uncovered in nearby sites), plus lovely azulejos and a nice collection of paintings.At the museum you can get a map to guide you through town and the enticing pedestrian shopping area around Rua de Sainte Antonio to the Teatro Lethes, a onetime church converted into an enchanting tiny opera house by an Italian family who made their fortune in Portugal after being shipwrecked en route to London. A short distance away is the impressive Igreja do Carmo church, which houses the Chapel of the Bones, an enticingly macabre chapel entirely faced with the bones of exhumed monks! The beach at Faro—actually an offshore strip of sand—is about 9 kilometers away and can be reached by car or ferry (from June to September) from the Porta Nova pier at the harbor.