Western Algarve - Lagos

From Aljezur we drove south and east to Lagos which is on the south coast. Here we had a very nice lunch at the Portelas restaurant - apparently a favourite among the locals - and the food was very good.

The first photo may be familiar from posts last year - it is the "promenade" along the marina in Lagos.

Lagos was a walled town and part of the old walled town remains. I would have liked to go through the walled area but time was limited so we went to the slave market area and the church of St Anthony, a small military church decorated to the extreme with angels, cupid like figures, saints, etc. all covered with gold leaf - no photos allowed. Anthony appears to have been the saint of many causes including protector of the military, finder of lost property and matchmaker. We were told that the church was small and had no seats so that the priest could see all of his congregation and make sure that no one was misbehaving or sleeping. Here is our group on the promenade after lunch discussing the next move.

With regard to the slave market - Mercado de Escravos, opened in 1444; Lagos was the first slave market in Portugal and possibly in Europe.
Apparently there was much trade between Lagos and north Africa and during trading trips in 1444 the Portuguese traders found slaves for sale so traded their goods for slaves and brought 230 back to Lagos to be traded or sold there.

The slave trade continued, supported by the Catholic church until 1761. In February of that year Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo a statesman in the government of King Joseph 1 facilitated passage of a law which made it illegal for the children of slaves to be held in slavery, the beginning of the end of slavery in Portugal. I don't have a photo of the market as it is nothing more that a 8 to 10 meter square with 230 ropes stretched across the area to signify the first group of 230 slaves brought in 1444. In the photo above, the slave market area is down at the end of the line of posts on the right - the Church of St. Anthony is on the left in the above photo and in the photo below.

In the square just to the left of the posts bordering the road there is a statue of Prince Henry the Navigator who is credited with spear-heading the extensive Portuguese explorations and discoveries. See comment below.

The church to the right is that of St. Anthony and the last photo is one of Ruth in the street beside the church.

We left Lagos in a bit of a rush and had a hectic drive to Sagres as we had to be there before the fortress on the Ponte de Sagres, just south of Sagres, closed. This is where Prince Henry the Navigator built a fortress and convened his navigation academy, a kind of "think tank", to realize his dream of conquering the oceans beyond the Canary Islands. More on the Ponte de Sagres place and Henry in the next post.