Castle and Walls of Silves

A tour of Silves is not complete without visiting the Castle, one of the best viewpoints over the city and the region. 

Considered one of the main and most beautiful Muslim fortifications in Portugal, this castle, classified as a National Monument, is also the largest in the Algarve.

Its construction dates back to the beginning of Islamic rule in the Iberian Peninsula, having been subject to successive reformulations. The walled perimeter that can currently be seen is the remains of the fence that surrounded Silves during the Almohad period (12th-13th centuries), having been rebuilt and reinforced on the remains of previous walls, in order to halt the Christian military advance. 

At the entrance to the Castle, there is a statue in honour of the Portuguese king Sancho I who, in 1189, conquered Silves for the first time from the Muslims, although the city was only definitively conquered by the Christians in 1242.

This solid defensive system of military mudstone - made of a mixture of clay, gravel, sand and limestone and with red sandstone of the region (sandstone of Silves) that gives it its reddish hue -, was organised into two large areas: the citadel, built on top of the hill and protected by 11 square towers; and the medina, which was connected to the citadel by a gate protected by two towers, surrounding almost the entire city.

In the citadel were discovered important housing structures from the Almohad era, as well as two wells for water supply, the Cistern of the Dogs and the Cistern of the Moor. It is said that underneath the castle lies great treasures left behind by the Muslims and that in the past, treasure hunters would have thrown their dogs into the first of the wells to search for such riches, but the dogs never returned? As for the Cistern of the Moor, which supplied water to the population of Silves until the 1990s, legend has it that on the nights of St. John a Moorish princess mourns her death, wandering around in a silver boat with golden oars, waiting for a prince to pronounce the magic words for her disenchantment...