click on the images below to make them full size

To see a google map of this area click here, the castle is just to the south of the A22 and just east of the river in the centre of the map

I discovered Paderne Castle when riding along the Algarve's A22, this is the 'motorway' than runs the entire length of the Algarve about ten kilometers inland from the coast. The castle is an impressive site, less than half a kilometer south of the A22 and probably about the same distance east of the A22 / IP 1 junction. The photograph on the left above I took from the A22. To find the castle by car take the road from Albufeira to Ferreiras then to Paderne, as you come into Paderne you take the first right turn just after going over the river, there is a sign 'Castelo de Paderne'.

The castle was built by the Moors in the 7th century on top of a rocky outcrop, it is surrounded on three sides by the Quarteira river, giving it a natural defensive moat. The fourth side is a more gradual slope and there is a road, which crosses the river using a Roman bridge, leading up to the castle on that side. The castle was built of huge blocks of taipa, which were made of a mixture of mud, lime and sandstone. This mixture became extremely hard and was only used for military building.

Inside the castle walls, which are almost two meters thick, is an underground water cistern which must have been part of the original construction, plus walls of houses that were built in the 13th century. The entrance to the castle is L shaped to make entry more difficult, the blocks of stone around the entrance are a part of a restoration that took place in the 1980s. There is also a ruined 14th century church. The houses inside the castle were inhabited until 1755 when they were very badly damaged by the earthquake, anyone living there at that time moved to the village of Paderne about a kilometer to the north.