Cathedral of Faro

Overview

Faro Cathedral, the Sé, stands in the walled Cidade Velha of Faro on a square of orange trees, the seat of the Algarve’s bishops since João III moved the see from Silves in 1540, on a site that was a Roman forum, a Christian basilica and the Moorish city’s mosque before Afonso III’s conquest of 1249 turned it into a church. Essex’s English fleet burned it in 1596 and the earthquake of 1755 wrecked it again, which is why it is Gothic at the base, Baroque inside and Portuguese plain style in between.

The visit is the gilt and tile interior, the 18th-century organ, a small bone chapel in the garden, and above all the bell tower, whose top has the best view over the Ria Formosa lagoon and its islands.

History

The mother church of the reconquered town was rebuilt on the mosque soon after 1249 and consecrated to the Virgin at the end of the 13th century by the archbishop of Braga. It became a cathedral in 1540 when Faro replaced Silves as the seat of the diocese, was sacked and burned in 1596 when the Earl of Essex’s fleet raided the town on the way home from Cádiz, and lost most of its upper parts in 1755, after which the interior was refitted in Baroque; the organ was installed by Johann Heinrich Hulenkampf in the 18th century.

Visiting

The medieval tower and portal survive from the first church; inside, the nave carries Baroque altarpieces in gilt wood, the walls 17th and 18th-century tiles, and the red Chinese-style organ is the piece people come for. In the cloister garden is the small ossuary chapel, an altar faced with bones like the better-known one in the Carmo church across town.

Climb the tower: the stair is narrow, the bells are at the top, and the terrace looks over the tiled roofs of the Cidade Velha, the Arco da Vila, the marina and the flat green and blue of the lagoon out to the barrier islands. Open Monday to Friday 10:00 to 18:30 and Saturday morning; Sunday is for Mass.

Tips

• The tower is the ticket’s worth; go up first, before the heat, and look at the church after.
• The Carmo church’s Capela dos Ossos, ten minutes away, is the larger and stranger bone chapel; do both if the subject appeals.
• The Cidade Velha is small; the municipal museum in the old convent next door has the Roman finds from Milreu and the Ossonoba floors.
• Storks nest on the tower and on half the chimneys of the old town in spring.

Nearby

• Arco da Vila and the Cidade Velha walls: two minutes.
• Faro municipal museum: next door.
• Ria Formosa Natural Park: the lagoon at the foot of the walls.
• Faro marina and the island ferries: five minutes.