Old Town Faro - The Cathedral

We up this morning and had quite the breakfast served to us at 8 a.m. on the terrace. Mario did an awesome job. Telmo is his partner and handles the business side of running a bnb. There are about 12 people of all ages staying here from England, France, Germany and Italy. Everyone is friendly.

Our ‘ first day in Faro’ plan was to wander through the old town. We really didn’t know what to expect but actually there is a lot to see in a small area once you go through the old city gates.

Faro has a long and interesting history. Here in a nutshell is what the Lonely Planet guide has written about it:

“After the Phoenicians and Carthaginians, Faro boomed as the Roman port Ossonoba. During the Moorish occupation, it became the cultured capital of an 11th-century principality.

Afonso III took the town in 1249 (the last major Portuguese town to be recaptured from the Moors), and walled it.

Portugal’s first printed works – books in Hebrew made by a Jewish printer – came from Faro in 1487.

A city from 1540, Faro’s brief golden age slunk to a halt in 1596, during Spanish rule. Troops under the Earl of Essex, en route to England from Spain in 1597, plundered the city, burned it and carried off hundreds of priceless theological works from the bishop’s palace, now part of the Bodleian Library in Oxford.

Battered Faro was rebuilt, poking its head over the parapet only to be shattered by an earthquake in 1722 and then almost flattened in the 1755 big one. Most of what you see today is postquake, though the historic centre largely survived. In 1834 it became the Algarve’s capital.”

Not far into our walk, we came upon the large Se, cathedral. I had read that even though most of the present building dates back to the 13th and 14th centuries this site has considerably more history. The oldest records show that there was a Roman forum built here around two thousand years ago. Following this a mosque was built here. With the Christian reconquest of Faro in 1249 the mosque was torn down and the Sé (cathedral) was put up in its place. Dedicated to the Virgin Mary the cathedral is also known as the Igreja de Santa Maria de Faro.

The cathedral was made a lot bigger in the 15th century as the population of Faro increased, although the main doorway, Gothic tower and two chapels are all from the original building.

In 1596 the interior of the cathedral was destroyed by fire when British troops lead by the Earl of Essex ransacked the town. Over the years the interior was replaced and now consists of some gorgeous 17th and 18th century tiling and gold leaf gilding. The Baroque pipe organ is a work of art as you’ll be able to see in the photos. I must say that I definitely wouldn’t want the job of dusting all the carvings in the church!

In 1755 the cathedral was damaged again, this time due to the devastating earthquake that shook all of Portugal, followed by the tidal wave.

We paid a small entrance fee and were able to explore the beautiful cathedral and its museum, and climb the 58 steps to the top of the tower where we had a great view out over the city and the harbour, and ... more storks and their huge nests!Read more