Tour of the Castle at Silves, Monchique, and Quinta do Frances (winery)

We went on a day long tour today. We started in Silves at the Castle. Then onto Monchique (the mountain is the highest point in the Algarve), into the village for lunch and last stop was a winery, Quinta do Frances, for wine tasting.

Our guide, Fillipe, was very knowledgeable and interesting. Folks from Apex, NC (who would have thought??) and Miami, Florida were on this tour also. We had a wonderful time with these folks!

We had lunch in the village of Monchique at a restaurant recommended by our guide. Mary finally had grilled sardines. Our server was named Mary. And the cat who wanted Mary’s sardines was also named Mary. That was a whole lot of Mary at one time. And I will not even comment on the smell of the sardines (Well, maybe I will) All I’ll say is the cat never left our side until the server removed the sardine bones from our table. And one more comment: I could not look up while I ate my ham sandwich and salad as I thought I was going to puke. All it would have taken was one sardine eye staring at me—I would have been done.

We stopped along the way to photograph some storks. They are protected in Portugal and are abundant near the coastline.

We enjoyed the tour of the small winery. They only sell their wine locally or to Portuguese communities in Europe.