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The river Arade was navigable for thousands of years up to fourteen kilometers inland and has been used for transport by the Phoenicians, Greeks, Carthaginians, Romans, Visigoths, Moors and finally Crusaders who sailed up the river Arade to Silves to attack the Moors in their castle.  Since then it has silted up and it is now only navigable up to Silves above half tide in a motorboat with shallow draft.

Sadly because of two low bridges over the river at Portimão it is impossible to go up the river with a yacht or a flybridge motor cruiser, however it would also be fun if you were to anchor your boat just inside the breakwaters at the entrance to the Arade and use your tender for the trip, just make sure that you have got enough petrol with you!

There has  been a town at Silves since the Roman occupation of the Algarve when the area was part of the Lusitania province. There are a number of menhirs (standing stones) in the area which suggest that people were living  here as far back as 3000 BC. 
Following 713 AD, when the Moors invaded the Iberian Peninsular, Silves became part of the Moorish Kingdom of Córdoba and by the 10th century it had become one of the most important towns of southern Iberia. The castle is built from red sandstone blocks and taipa; a Moorish mixture of mud and sandstone that hardens like stone. The castle walls were constructed with eleven square towers,  nothing remains of the original Moorish buildings inside the castle walls except a very large underground reservoir and a well with a legend that claims you can hear a Moorish princess crying where her lover committed suicide by throwing himself down the well.

In the year of 1060, Fernando I, King of Leon and Castile defeated the Moors at Silves and held  the castle for a short time. It was later retaken by the Moors.

In 1189 King Sancho I of Portugal (shown below left) conquered Silves with the aid of northern European Crusaders, when they attacked the town they destroyed everything outside of the town’s walls. It took the combined armies six weeks before the Moors surrendered following an agreement made with King Sancho, the agreement allowed the Moors along with all their belongings to leave unharmed. The Moors left the relative safety of the castle  knowing that their passage to Seville or Cordoba was guaranteed, a group of Crusaders ignored the agreement and killed all the Moors  and then ransacked the town.  

In 1190, a Moorish army tried in vain to retake the castle, their attempts failed owing to the town being defended by Crusaders with the help of Richard the Lionheart.  A more successful attempt was made a year later in 1191, when the Moors took the town, taking 3000 Christian slaves.  Under Muslim rule again, the city prospered to the point of being known as the Baghdad of the West.

In 1242 the town was finally taken from the last Moorish king by Paio Peres Correia, Grand-Master of the order of Santiago; all of Portugal and the Algarve were now under Portuguese control. The mosque was changed into a Christian Cathedral. In 1491 the town was given to queen Leonora by King João.

Traveling up the river to Silves by boat is a very enjoyable trip, once you are past the 125 bridge you are in totally unspoilt and remote country. It is approximately fourteen kilometers, I would not advise attempting it with a boat with a draft of more than half a meter, a motor boat with either a stern drive or an outboard engine that can be raised a little to avoid damaging the propeller should you encounter shallow water is the best type of boat.

If possible go up to Silves on a rising tide and back down again not too long after high water, for tide times for Silves click here. (please note that tide times are given in WEST (Western european standard time or GMT as we used to call it, so you need to add one hour to these times in the summer).  The best time of the month for such a trip is when there are spring tides because high water is around mid afternoon, so if you leave Portimão at about midday you will get to Silves at about half past one, there are lots of good restaurants on the quay, so you can have a leisurely lunch and leave before the tide starts falling.

Directions to get up to Silves from the mouth of the river Arade are as follows. Leave two red buoys to port (Nos 2 & 4) as you go past  Marina de Portimão, then leave green buoy number 1 and Ferragudo to starboard, keep now to the west side of the river leaving green buoys numbers 3 & 5 to starboard after which keep well over to the west side of the river where you will find the deepest water. Go under the road bridge which has its center supports marked green and red to show you where the channel passes under the bridge, if there is not enough room for your boat to fit under the road bridge (which is lower than the railway bridge) then go over to the extreme western side where there is a narrow section that is much higher than the rest of the bridge.

After approximately 200 yards there is the railway bridge which also has its center supports marked green and red to show the channel (this bridge will only not have enough air height for about an hour either side of high water springs for most boats). Then go for approximately two kilometers up the east side of the river following the well marked channel (red and green buoys) to Boca do Rio which you will find on the east side of the river just before the 125 bridge, which is shown above & to the left. 

Pass under the middle of the 125 bridge and then start moving over to the west side of the river to pass under the A22 bridge through the left hand arch, shown above right. Now continue up the river keeping to the middle, for about 2 ½ kilometers and take a sharp right fork where there is a single cottage in front of you immediately after the second of two islands on the right hand side of the river as shown in the photograph to the left.

Travel now for almost five kilometers and you will find yourself at the quay in Silves.  

There are two sets of steps on your port side here, and plenty of steel rings where you can tie up your boat. 100 meters in front of you there is a medieval bridge that is reputed to have Roman foundations which you will see in the picture to the left. Just over the road is an excellent restaurant called U Monchiqueiro and many other restaurants all along the quay and down narrow streets that lead into the town center. If you have time after lunch it is just 10 minutes walk up to the castle, the entrance is just the far side of the Cathedral with a statue of Dom Sancho I just outside where you enter the castle, as you can see in the photograph shown below.

The Moors were in control of the Algarve from their base at Silves for more than 500 years it is not surprising therefore that their presence for so long  has had a considerable influence on the local culture.

It is not just the colour of the skin of some of the people, or the design of the small fishing boats on the coast or the architecture of some of the markets and bullrings. 

But a  trip up the river Arade to Silves to find the castle's walls and eleven towers still intact as solid evidence of their presence in the Algarve for 500 years until 800 years ago is like a trip back in time and it only takes about 90 minutes. If you haven't got your own boat or yours has too much draft to get up the river I know someone who can take you up there, click here for more information.