A little bit of History

A few centurys agoo...
"The Moors called it the Algarve, the land on the other side of the sea. They sailed across the sea, conquered the land, and ruled it for half a millennium before succumbing to the Christian re-conquest in 1249. Nearly a thousand years later, the Moorish presence can still be felt from the turret of a strategically situated castle looking out over a town to the distant sea. It lingers in white latticed chimneys -- miniature minarets that stick up out of red-tiled roofs, in walls decorated with blue and white azulejos and pots of painted pottery, in groves of almond and orange trees leaning against hillsides terraced by stone walls, in the many names beginning with the Arabic “Al”. Before the Moors, there were the Phoenicians and the Greeks, the Romans and the Visigoths – all attracted to the rugged waterfront and fertile soil of this strikingly beautiful land along Portugal’s southern shore".