Lagos - 4th week
Red Skies
David Alexander
Thu 16 Jul 2009 09:41
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Last night we went on another free tour provided by
the Lagos municipality. This was a walking tour, which had hoped to go on two
weeks ago but was cancelled due to lack of take-up. We were the first to have
our names down for this one and in the event about 40 people turned up for the
start - this dwindled to about half that number by the finish - mainly because
our guide would move off to the next location without checking that her group
was with her.
We started at 9.00 pm at the Forte Ponta da
Bandeira, a fortress at the entrance to the river originally constructed by the
Moors, but substantially rebuit since. An interesting feature here wasa museum
seemingly dedicated to rebutting claims by the neighbouring town of Sagres that
Henry the Navigator had founded a navigation school there, whereas really he had
spent his time at Lagos.
We then went via the statue of St Gonzales, the
patron saint of Lagos and tuna fishermen, to the old walls and the birthplace of
the said saint, in a room within the wall itself, where a shrine is now
situated.
The tour continued to a 16th century building,
now a museum in which there were a whole selection of interactive audio-visual
displays depicting Lagos through the eras from before Roman times to the
present. Unfortunately, not only were the interactive facilities not operating
but neither were most of the displays - the curator desperately going from one
to another with a variety of handheld contollers trying to coax some to display
some information.
We then went to the magnificent Church of St
Antonio, which was rebuilt in 1769. This is a fine example of baroque decoration
with gilded carved woodwork and a wooden ceiling representing the vault of a
cradle. Adjacent to the church is a museum, displaying religious art works and
paintings from 17th,,18th and 20th centuries, together with some Roman
artifacts.
The tour moved on to the warehouse where goods from
Portugal's colonies (the Discoveries) were first unloaded and then to the Slave
Market, which although rebuilt is still in the style of the original one dating
from 1444. It is said that over 100,000 slaves passed through that unhappy
place.
We ended our guided excursion at 11.00 pm in the
main square just outside the recently abandoned town hall. This has been
superseded by a very large and modern complex at the entrace to the town,
which was only opened last week. Throughout
our female giuide had been speaking in Portuguese and English, and after
discovering a couple from Spain who couldn't understand either language, in
Spanish as well.
On Tuesday, Twister, one of the Rally Portugal
fleet returned to the Marina and we caught up with the adventures of Carl and
Camilla since we last saw them. They are intending to leave their boat at Lagos
for the next year and today Carl has arranged for a diver to clean its bottom
and check the anodes for a fee of 50 euros. It will be interesting to see how
successful this is.
In the last couple of days the winds have returned
to their more normal pattern of being light in the morning and picking up from
the North during the afternoon to die back again over night. We were glad of the
respite from the consistently strong winds which had even caused us to get up in
the middle of the night to take our bimini in just to reduce the level of noise
from humming straps.
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