Silves Castle – Silves, Portugal in the Algarve

Silves Castle (or in Portugese, Castelo de Silves) is the Algarve’s best preserved castle and definitely worth a look if you’re visiting the area. Dating back to 1000 BC, the Silves Castle features the Moorish architecture commonly found in the area, as the the Moors once ruled the region. In this guide, I’ll answer the question – “Is Silves Castle worth visiting?” So let’s begin!

Silves Castle – Details

Location:
R. do Castelo
8300-135
Silves, Portugal

We were on a Portugal road trip, so we visited Silves by rental car, but there is a train that services Silves.

Admission: 2.8 Euros per person (so cheap!)

Hours: 9am – 5:30pm, 7 days a week

Time commitment: 1-2 hours

Visiting Silves Castle

I loved visiting castles on my Portugal road trip, and although Silves Castle wasn’t on my initial itinerary, we ended up with a free afternoon, and decided to head up to Silves to check it out.

If you are arriving via car, there is a large parking lot near the river at the south end of town – if you’re having trouble finding the parking lot, search for the Burger Ranch restaurant on Google Maps – it’s in the same lot.

The castle is on top of a hill, overlooking the town of Silves, Portugal, so you’ll have a bit of a walk if you chose to park in this lot (which I highly recommend. It was free!) Walking allows you to explore the rest of the town of Silves, which is wonderful! You’ll find cobblestone streets, restaurants, shops, and an historic church. Unfortunately, we visited in January (low season) so many of these stores and restaurants were closed.

Tourists are allowed to wander pretty much freely all over the castle and in doing so, you’ll have be careful as there are a lot of uneven surfaces and there are no guardrails on the castle walls or steps. If you’re traveling with small children, you’ll need to keep an extra eye on them!

There isn’t much left as far as the interior of the castle goes, but it was still fun to explore the perimeter and lookout points of the castle. There is a small cafe inside the castle, surrounded by a small pool as well as also a lot of interesting ceramic statues placed all around in the gardens. You’ll also find an Iberian lynx exhibit to check out.

Excavation is ongoing inside the castle, so you’ll see archeological ruins as you walk by. For an extra fee, you can explore these ruins but we did not do that on our visit.

My favorite part of visiting this castle was simply walking along the ramparts and and peering over the castle walls, to enjoy the views. In addition to excellent views of the town below, you’ll be able to see citrus and cork trees – both important exports to the region.

Silves Castle in Portugal – Final Thoughts

Silves Castle is a nice addition to your itinerary when visiting the Algarve region of Portugal, however, I wouldn’t call it a must-see. That said, admission is so cheap that even if you spend 20-30 minutes here, just to take photos, you won’t feel cheated out of your money. If you have a free day, it’s worth venturing up here to see it.

Have you visited any castles in Portugal? Have you visited the Silves Castle – if so, what did you think? Let me know in the comments!

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