This week we found ourselves both under and above the water. Sous vide at an anniversary dinner meant slowly cooked in a water bath — elegant, precise, and not exactly us. The very next day, we were floating in the warm salt pans of Castro Marim, coated in mud and baking under the Algarve sun. Two very different kinds of immersion, both memorable in their own way.
Sous Not Us
After celebrating our anniversary with roundabouts and Roman ruins, we decided to dine in a historic place. Once the residence of the Tavares family, the palace has been carefully restored — original stone staircases, carved wood, and stone architraves preserved, with new Moorish-inspired ‘Medina’ wings added. Reopened as Palácio de Tavira in August 2025, the building now houses a boutique hotel and its restaurant, Mirsal.
Fine dining came with all the trimmings: hushed tones, sous vide entrées, and even our bottle of water placed ceremoniously in the center of the room so it could be poured out in careful sips. Quiet, slow, and elegant — and SO not US.
We walked home afterward in the dark, picking our way across torn-up streets and for a short stretch along the N125 — a dark two-lane highway we probably shouldn’t be frequenting as much as we do.
Mud, Sun, Repeat
If our anniversary dinner at Mirsal was all white tablecloths and sous vide precision, then our next outing was its opposite — salty, muddy, and gloriously messy.
We drove out to Castro Marim to SPA Salino, a working salina turned spa, and signed up for the float-and-mud treatment. First came a 40-minute soak in saltwater at 25ºC. It took a moment to adjust, but soon we were bobbing like corks.
Then came the mud — a thick black coat slathered on before baking under the sun for half an hour. Showers were outside: you pulled a string, water splashed, and slowly the goo loosened. Not squeaky clean, but effective enough. We wrapped up with a café cheio and fresh juice, probably still wearing streaks of mud we’d missed in the rinse.
Cotton Candy or Culture?
Right behind where we live, the fairgrounds are filling up for the Feira de São Francisco — bumper cars, merry-go-rounds, a fun house, and a few machines whirl people into the air. We have been watching the construction unfold daily. Even though we are going Saturday night with friends, we couldn’t resist checking it out on opening night. It a short walk to the edge of our neighborhood then a path to the fairground parking lot. It was not as busy as I anticipated, but it was afterall a Thursday night. The fair runs Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday!
Meanwhile, in the centro, the newly rebuilt Cine-Teatro António Pinheiro has opened its doors. Tavira has had a theater here since the 1960s, later adapted for cinema, but the old structure was demolished in 2018. In its place stands a modern, multifunctional building for film, theater, music, and dance. With its 14-meter tower and sharp lines, it isn’t everyone’s favorite addition to the skyline — but it has everyone curious about what’s playing. The programming is already in motion, with Cineclube de Tavira helping bring films to the big screen alongside theater and concerts.
Above and Below
This week carried us above and below — from the precision of sous vide to the looseness of floating in saltwater, from the hum of fairground rides behind our house to the hush of a new cinema in the centro.
Life here drifts between the messy and the refined, the loud and the quiet, the above and the below. And somewhere in that rhythm, we’re learning to settle in.
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