In Querença, we find:

A typical gastronomy, preserved by local restaurants. Typical dishes Querença, among others, Cerejada Chicken, the Cabidela Rooster and the Xerém (the corn porridge, traditional Algarve).

Craftsmen, working mainly in palm (empreita), sugarcane (basketry) and fabric dolls (Philippa Spark);
Liquors, being produced in more than 16 varieties.
Honey, originating from the greater variety of flowers of the Mediterranean basin.
Other tourist attractions are: The valleys of Mercês e da Benémola, this inserted in an area, in the process of Natural Monument rating, previously “protected area Source of Benémola”. Rich Mediterranean flora. Traditional sources.

The construction of the convent lasted for over forty years, with the royal patronage of the Queens Leonor grantee City and Manuel I woman, from 1519 to 1525 and of Queen Catherine, wife of King João III from 1529 to 1550. The most active phase of the yard, had the architect Afonso Pires and from 1561 to 1564, under the Diogo Pires orders. The convent is to highlight the Renaissance style, with a Manueline church and baroque dome.

Extinguished the religious orders in 1834, the convent passed to the hand of individuals, including having served facilities of a factory of cork stoppers, in the early twentieth century.

However a National Monument, the town bought the building in 1960 for installation of the Library and Municipal Museum.

Despite the looting carried out by British troops of the Earl of Essex (who also attempted against other buildings in Faro in 1596) and the 1755 earthquake is one of the best examples of the first Renaissance in the Algarve.

Despite its modest altitude, form a very peculiar landscape, where rounded elevations, the hills are cut by a dense river network, consisting mostly of temporary waterways. The relief is for this reason fairly rough at several points.

The  Serra do Caldeirão has considerable climatic influence. It constitutes a physical barrier to the passage of the cold winds of the North and Northwest quadrant of depressions, contributing to the existence of a Mediterranean climate in the Algarve coast, with low annual rainfall and mild temperatures in winter. On the other hand, is also a condensation barrier for winds wet South quadrant.

The average annual rainfall varies: in the higher areas of the municipality of Loulé are greater than 800 mm per year, but as we approach the border with Spain to the east (Guadiana valley), go down until they are below 500 annual mm in the regions of the Algarve Northeast.

Presently the main inlet of the system is the Faro-Olhão inlet, which was artificially opened. The process started in 1927 but only in 1952 were the engineering works completed and it assumed the present configuration.

Within the Ria Formosa system, different and sometimes antagonistic uses may be found. Part of the system is a Natural Park but Ria Formosa also plays an important role in the region’s economy. Beyond the tourist use the system also supports other economic activities like seafood farms (including grooved carpet shell harvesting) and the port of Faro.

The Ria Formosa is also a designated Natural Park of over 170 km² and a stopping place for hundreds of different birds during the spring and autumn migratory periods.

The most important cities near the Ria Formosa are Tavira, Faro and Olhão.

There are also some towns in this area, whose names are: Fuzeta (which belongs to the municipality of Olhão), Santa Luzia, Cabanas de Tavira (these last two belonging to Tavira) and Cacela Velha (which belongs to Vila Real de Santo António).

Several buses run from Tavira to Cabanas and back each weekday, but there are no buses on Saturday afternoons nor all day Sundays and Holidays, even in summer. The nearest train station is in nearby Conceição which is on the Tavira to Vila Real line. That’s about 1 mile /1.6km and an easy walk. Trains stop there daily, but at very irregular intervals of 1 – 3 hours.

Little villages and towns in the area, such as Cabanas de Tavira, have a large number of bars, cafés and restaurants which run along the riverfront and are also dotted around a couple of blocks inland. Annually, about 30,000 species of birds can be observed from Ria Formosa, since the region serves as a migratory corridor and contains some the last remaining nesting grounds in Europe for some bird species.

The coast of east Algarve has a remarkably mild climate, with sunny days all year round. Winters are usually mild and summers are not very hot. Because of these features, beaches in the Ria Formosa area are well known, like Vale do Lobo, Faro Island, Culatra, Barril, Tavira Island, Cabanas de Tavira, Cacela Velha and Manta Rota. Barril attracts a good number of naturists. Tavira Island Beach has a camping park.

For many the most beautiful part of the Ria Formosa, admirably preserved its charm and serenity. The beautiful walled town of Cacela-a-Velha, founded upon a fossil cliff with about a million years, it is contemplated the Ria Formosa and the barrier island where is located the sea beach.

Constituted crossing point for Greek and Phoenician navigators, and according to some authors have been Cunistorgis, the ancient capital of Cuneos. The Romans expanded it and the Arabs gave him prestige.

Cacela goes, in 713, to Muslim rule during the campaign Abdelaziz (son of Muça) in the Algarve and Alentejo. The Algarve coast was under the control of Yemeni and Syrian Arab clans, Cacela being dominated by Arabs from the group of Banu Darraj.

Cacela was a relatively large population of heart (district) of Ossónoba (Faro). His name was Hisn-Kastala, Qastallat Dararsh, Cacetalate or Cacila (meadow or cattle grazing), from which derive the current name.

It was defended by a castle dating from the IX-X century, the caliphate of the time, and would extend out of the walled enclosure, featuring a sea-agricultural nature.

During the Islamic period and the Middle Ages was an important population center, having been conquered from the Moors by D. Palo Peres Correia in 1240. According to legend, after the conquest of Cacela, truces were dictated, but seven Christian knights were killed treacherously by the Moors and so the fury of D. Palo came over Tavira and won it.

On July 17, 1283 D. Dinis granted charter to Cacela. Cacela in the county were integrated portions of existing parishes of Odeleite and Azinhal.

During the fourteenth century due to changes in the coastline and the constant pirate attacks the population began to leave the village and from inland, spreading by farms and farms of the rich agricultural lands stretching down the mountain. This trend will have accented especially since the Age of Discovery. While maintaining maritime activities, Cacela acquired a markedly rural nature.

Paper notes from 1465 no houses beyond the castle where the commander lived. Drawing 1617 shows an urban center consists of fortress, church, prior of the houses, home of the camera and pillory. The inhabitants lived outside the village. 1621 comes the “Relationship and Moth Cacela village,” Alexander Massai.

With the earthquake of November 1, 1755, “in Villa de Cacela (…) it ruined the Matrix, the Misericordia, the Chamber of Cazas, and will Fortaleza visinha fell the ramparts contanta violence, which threw the beach mounted cannons” [ in “Relaçam anno of November 1 the earthquake of 1755. With effeitos, which particularly cauzou this Kingdom of the Algarve”.
The “Charter of topographic vacant and fallow lands of the term of Casella village (…) in 1775″ shows an urban center consisting of church, fortress, pillory, priest houses, chamber and string and houses the governor.

As part of a political and administrative reform of the Algarve, Cacela chamber is abolished in December 12, 1775 by decree of King Jose I, and its united territory to the newly created Vila Real de Santo António. The Priory Cacela, with its commendation, had been transferred to Vila Real de Santo Antonio in the previous year. In 1784 (?) To Cacela Parish was created, by dismemberment of the parish of Vila Real de Santo António.

The Cacela peninsula

The Cacela peninsula is a dune system which is located on the east edge of the Natural Park of Ria Formosa, whose isthmus is next from Manta Rota Beach, and that by 2010 ended in Barra do Lacém; then this shoreline had two beaches: the Old Cacela Beach and the Beach Factory. Due to the opening of a new bar that year, currently the Beach Cacela Velha is located on the western end of the peninsula, while the Beach Factory occupies a sandy islet south of the village that gives it its name.

By separating the Ria Formosa sea, the peninsula protect this lagoon formation and all its natural values against the ocean thrusts. The whole peninsula is a sandy dune system covered by endemic vegetation that protects the natural erosion.

The beach of Cacela Velha

The beach or Cacela Velha Cacela Beach is located west end of Cacela Peninsula, south of the historic village of Cacela Velha.

In 2009 the beach of Cacela Velha was considered one of the ten best beaches in Europe for practicing caminhadas.2

The sandy peninsula due to its isolation, is away from the big flood of tourists that characterize other seaside resorts in the region. It is therefore much frequented by lovers of naturismo.3

Despite the limitations imposed by protected area, some world have invested fortunes in the region.

The beach of Cacela Velha is also popular with the gay and lesbian community and is considered the best beach in the country for this tourist segment, along the beach of Costa da Caparica 19. A beach figure in several national and international LGBT guides.

It is possible that Silves have a bridge in Roman times, given the fact that the town was at the crossroads of Roman roads and also by opus discovery signinum near current ponte.2 In later centuries history is more obscure. As Silves (then called Xelb) was the capital of an Islamic kingdom in the XI-XII centuries, some historians who floated a bridge could have been built in the Muslim city. However, medieval descriptions of Silves carried out by Arabs and Christians never mention a bridge in place, making it unlikely the existence of such a structure to época.1 For example, cross-reporting the conquest of the city by King Sancho I, in 1189 , does not mention any ponte.

The current bridge was raised in the fifteenth century. The first documentary reference is in Lisbon Cortes of 1439, where the envoys of Silves refer to the reconstruction work of a ponte.1 Other documents indicate that the bridge was under construction in 1459 but in 1473 was already finished.

In the early seventeenth century the bridge lost two arches and had to be restored. In 1716 it was again restored by bricklayer Inácio Mendes, but reusing the structures anteriores.1 The stylistic structure of the bridge, however, was not changed in such reformas.

In the twentieth century an arch of the bridge, located on the right bank, was eliminated for the construction of the promenade. In 1950 it was raised for a nearby concrete bridge and the old bridge has become pedestrian.

The primitive fortification of the place dates back to a watchtower built under the reign of King John II (1481-1495). Later, when the Ferragudo village was founded (1520), it is believed to have been surrounded by a defensive wall erected on the remains of another, older, probably dating from the time of the watchtower construction.

According to the report Alexandre Massai, the wall still existed in 1621, as they state “a fenced place called Ferragudo” (Description of the Kingdom of Algarve …, 1621).

Aiming at the defense of that estuary, before the village, downstream, on a rocky elevation, one artillery bulwark was erected around 1643.

The force of the elements (tides and storms), culminating in a violent storm in 1669, caused severe damage to the bulwark.

Repaired in 1754, an inspection made by the Kingdom of Algarve Governor, D. Rodrigo de Noronha and Antonio Meneses, the fort was considered in perfect condition. Then had two artillery batteries:

the Low Battery, with three artillery pieces;
the High Battery, artillery by four.
The following year was severely damaged by the earthquake of 1755, including the foundations. In 1765 a new report realized that all their quarters were in ruins, having spent $ 80 000 réis in its rebuilding.

Location: Ferragudo
Height: 10 m
Altitude: 32 m

37º06’20.98”N / 08º31’10.60”W