The first such-event organized in August 2012 offered privileged access to culturally and historically valuable chapels, thus allowing for a very real, very original acoustic sound to be heard by our human ears.

This year as well the festival will be using the venues of the Igreja Nossa Senhora da Grasa of Sagres Fortress and the Emrida de Guadalupe in Vila do Bispo, both of which are recognized as important Portuguese heritage sites. However, this year’s event will also add to its list of venues the courtyard of the Centro Cultural de Lagos from the end of July through to the end of August.

The music will be performed by a variety of internationally acclaimed specialist on authentic instruments of several historical periods such as: viola de gamba, recorders, flutes, ancient cornets and clarinets are only some of the examples, plus period song and dance will be added in to complete the theme and atmosphere.

The concerts that make up the Sons Antigos a Sul Music Festival are part of a larger and international string of events meant to celebrate the European Year of the Citizen. The events celebrate twenty years of the Maastricht Treaty and particularly honor three hundred years since the Treaty of Utrecht from 1713 which united many of the European nations that now make up the European Union. The goal of the larger event is to show the rich and complex relationships between the cultures of all of these diverse countries.

In regards to the Portuguese concerts, attending these will be free of charge however, you will have to pay a small fee to enter the monuments, but that is to be expected if you were to visit them anyway, and those fees are only nominal.

Portimao is one of the largest towns in the Algarve, alongside the likes of Olhao, or the capital Faro. As opposed to most other Algarve locations, Portimao does not get most of its revenue from tourism activities, instead it acts as more of a headquarters for those who want to visit the various nearby tourist resorts, however there are things to be done in Portimao as well.

Portimao offers some great shopping opportunities in its center, so that’s of interest to a certain percentage of visitors of course, but there are also a few attractions in town as well, such as the old iron bridge in the north of the city.

As far as the atmosphere in the city goes, Portimao is quite the lively town, even if it is not a tourist resort. You’ll find a lot of small eating places, family businesses and a lot of great seafood dishes – which are to be expected in the region.

It’s not a town known for monuments or museums, but that doesn’t necessarily make it less worthy of some exploration. It’s smaller than Faro, but similarly to the capital it’s also a working city pretty much, so the experience that you’ll get here from walking around will differ from that you’ll get from a tourist resort.

Lunch in Portimao is something to look forward to, of course you can go to a restaurant but in order to get a better feel of the place you should go to the harborside and find a table at one of the smaller eateries. This is where you’ll get some great traditional cooking, chargrilled sardines and the like, not to mention that it won’t be very expensive either.

You can check out the town and its surroundings that much better with the help of our Algarve car hire services.

As opposed to most other potential visiting places that you’ll find in the Algarve, Silves is set on the banks of the Arade River, a charming town peppered with orange and lemon trees and deeply steeped in history.

Actually the town was a very affluent Moorish capital in the past, it was known as Xelb back then, and it was so important because it was the main access to inland Algarve, thanks to the river. Unfortunately that did not last very long because the river is now too silted up to allow for large vessels to use it.

In any case, what you definitely must take away from visiting this town is its most prominent monument, the Castelo de Silves.

This is now the best preserved castle in the entire region – so just for that you should schedule an Algarve low cost transfer to Silves, but that is not all.

The castle sits upon the hilltop, overlooking the town, and beside it you’ll find the local Cathedral. Going up to the castle will offer you some spectacular views from the battlements. The castle has eleven towers, two of which are barbicans, and somehow the thick walls have survived, enclosing an area of 12,000 square meters. Four of the eleven were rebuilt during the 14^th and 15^th centuries feature Gothic doorways. During the Moorish period, the castle was the residence of the lord of the city.

The nearby Cathedral of Silves is one of the few remaining Gothic monuments in Algarve that still have ancient tombs.