Europe Travel Guide

Silves (pronounced Slvesh) is a town on the Portuguese Algarve. It is located near a Roman bridge over the Ribeira de Arade and thus controls the river valley down to the coast.

The town was occupied by the Muslims in 713 and became part of the Ummayad kingdom of Cordoba under the Arabic name of Shilb ???. In the 10th century, it was one of the most important towns of western Al-Andalus. Silves became an independent taifa in 1027 under the rule of Ibn Mozaine and his son, who was dethroned in 1051 by al-Mu’tadid, the governor of Sevilla. al-Mu’tamid ibn ‘Abbad, the son of al-Mu’tadid and a famous poet, ruled the taifa of Silves until 1091. After the Almoravid conquest the town became Almohad in 1156. In 1189 King Sancho I of Portugal conquered the town during the reconquista, but lost it again to the Almohads. The town was finally taken from the last Muslim king Ibn Afan by Paio Peres Correia, Master of the order of Santiago in 1242, after the Alentejo and most of the coast had already fallen in 1238. The great mosque was changed into a church (Cathedral S). In 1267 the Algarve became Portuguese. In 1491 the town was given to queen Leonora by King Joao.

Parts of the Almohad town wall, constructed from poured concrete, have been preserved, as well as the Almedina-gate (Porta de Loul). Other sights include the Church Santa Misericrdia with a fine door in manuelitic style, the main body of the church was built in 1727/28, a museum for cork and the production of wine-corks in a defunct factory and the municipial museum (museu municipal de Arqueologia) with finds from the palaeolithic onwards.