Tavira

Tavira's origins go back to the late Bronze Age. In the 8th century BC it became one of the first Phoenician settlements in the Iberian west, with massive walls, a sanctuary and two harbours on the hill of Santa Maria. The site was abandoned and revived more than once, and in the time of Julius Caesar the Romans built a new port some seven kilometres away; Tavira itself was a minor stop on the road between Balsa and Baesuris, today's Castro Marim. Under the Moors, from the 8th to the 13th century, it grew rapidly from the 11th century into one of the important towns of Gharb al-Andalus, with a castle, two mosques and palaces, and an archaeological survey has shown that its "Roman" bridge began as a Moorish one.

In 1242 Dom Paio Peres Correia took the town after seven of his knights were killed during a truce; his troops killed most of the population, and the few survivors were confined to a small Mouraria. He died in Tavira in 1275 and lies in the church of Santa Maria do Castelo, built on the site of a mosque. The port prospered, and by the 18th century it shipped salt, dried fish and wine.

The 1755 earthquake destroyed almost all of the town's buildings, and Tavira was rebuilt with many fine 18th-century houses and its 37 churches. Tuna fishing sustained it into the 20th century — a tuna fishery worked on Barril beach from 1841 to 1967 — until the tuna's migration changed and silt built up in the Gilão. Tourism has since taken its place, though the town has stayed smaller and quieter than the resorts further west.

Tavira's character comes from its churches, its river and the white houses with Moorish-style doors and rooftops that reflect its long Muslim past. The church of the Misericórdia, begun in 1541 by André Pilarte, who had worked on the Jerónimos Monastery in Lisbon, is one of the finest Renaissance buildings in the Algarve, and the municipal museum spreads across several sites, with the Baroque Palácio da Galeria as its main building.

The town presents itself as a place of slow living. It belongs to the Cittaslow network and was Portugal's representative community when UNESCO inscribed the Mediterranean diet as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. It is also the home of the International Association of Paremiology, which holds an annual conference of proverb scholars here. The municipal library is named after Álvaro de Campos, the heteronym of the poet Fernando Pessoa whose fictional family came from Tavira.

Sport has a long local tradition: the Clube de Ciclismo de Tavira, founded in 1979, is said to have the oldest professional cycling team in the world in continuous activity. In the fishing villages of the lagoon, Santa Luzia and Cabanas, the memory of the tuna fishery is kept alive by the old anchors on Barril beach.

The town had about 13,800 people at the 2021 census, and the municipality, which stretches inland into the hills over more than 600 square kilometres, about 27,500 in six parishes. The army keeps a base in the town.

Tourism is now the base of the economy, together with services and the building and golf development around the town. Fishing, once the main industry, has declined, and salt is gathered in the pans by the lagoon. House prices have risen sharply in recent years, and a shopping centre with a cinema and supermarket has been built on the outskirts.

Life in the centre is unhurried. People shop at the riverside market and in the streets around Praça da República, cross the old bridge on foot, and take the ferry or the footbridge to the island beaches in summer, while the villages along the lagoon to the east and west remain quieter still.

Tavira eats from the lagoon and the sea. Santa Luzia, just to the west, calls itself the capital of octopus, its local speciality. Tuna was the town's great catch for centuries — caught with the almadrava, a technique dating back to the Phoenicians — and is still served grilled or as steaks. Cataplana, the Algarve stew of clams, prawns or pork steamed in a hinged copper pan named after the dish, and grilled fish are on most menus.

The town's own pastry is the folhado de Tavira, a puff pastry cake wrapped in sugar. The Algarve's sweets of figs, almonds and honey are sold in its pastelarias, and the hills inland produce medronho, a strong brandy distilled from the fruit of the strawberry tree.

Tavira has its own wine appellation, Tavira DOC. Its status as the Portuguese community of the Mediterranean diet reflects a way of eating built on vegetables, fruit, cereals, legumes, olive oil and fish. The market by the river and the restaurants of the waterfront and of Santa Luzia and Cabanas are the places to find all of it.