Portugal for the Inquisitive.

We took the road, northwards, from Portimao on the Algarve coast of Portugal and headed inland for the town of Silves. The guide book indicated an interesting town with a cathedral and a well preserved fortress castle. Nearing the end of our holiday it sounded like a nice place to explore. It had been a good holiday for the five of us. We felt like experienced world travellers although this was only our second ever trip abroad and the first one on our own without friends. Starting from scratch ,as travellers abroad ,our brand new luggage and going-away clothes from the previous years trip to Keffalonia, Greece were suitably battle scarred and we blended in very well at the airport and amongst the other travellers from Manchester Airport. What we were not used to was the heat and humidity of the south Portugal coast which hit us as soon as we landed in the early afternoon at Faro. We fired up the Fiat Punto hire car which struggled to cope with a full contingent plus the children's hard shell cases and the main wardrobe sized suitcase. It was just about dark when we bumped along a dusty, unmade track which, from my fraught navigation skills could as easily have led to the town dump than what was actually a really nice Villa. Two weeks of rest and relaxation were planned. The Villa was large and cool. Well equipped and with a good sized pool. The owners were English and although we had booked through an agency and a local rep we soon profiled our hosts on the basis of the contents of the bookshelves and the audio tape collection. Definitely associates of the Kray twins we thought as there was a strong East End of London theme to the non-fiction, mainly crime books and by the end of the holiday we had developed a cross between a cockney accent and posh home counties from listening to Round the Horne and other very stilted 1950's BBC radio broadcasts. The Villa was quiet and private and after chilling out for the first couple of days we set out to see what was beyond the brow of the hill which rose between us and the town. Within a few hundred metres of the Villa were the sprawling suburbs of Portimao, originally a fishing port but now over developed with high rise hotels, shopping malls and amusement parks. Lidl supermarket, rather than anything cultural, was our first stop. We then drove around a bit nearer the sea front. It was, disappointingly, a bit like Blackpool in parts and from the overheard noise of conversation most of that town were also on holiday there. There was plenty to see and do in the area and most days involved a drive out, getting hot, finding some shade, eating and then returning to the tranquility of the Villa and a welcome cooling off in the pool. Our only beach day was a contrast of roasting hot sands under foot and, shockingly for august, a perishingly cold sea. Of course, it was not the sun kissed Mediterranean but the Atlantic Ocean. After only a couple of minutes our newly sunburnt skin was blue and goose-pimpled. We must have been an amusement to the locals and other holiday makers as we were the only ones actually in the water. Westwards were some picturesque village harbours and stone fortifications, the latter dating from the transporting of slaves to the Americas. If it was too hot near the coast we would drive into the countryside and hills for some relief from the thick, humid temperatures although most afternoons were accompanied by hot, dry and high winds. Seville was about 150 miles away to the east by motorway and we spent half a day in travelling there and back but it was well worth climbing up the Giralda, seeing the World Expo buildings and Christopher Columbus's tomb amongst the thriving Cityscape. The two weeks were passing too quickly and to conclude our enjoyable experience of Portugal we started to think about presents for friends and family. Embroidered lace table cloths, painted ceramic tiles and rustic clay Christmas Tree angels were purchased from a large market hall. We could relax on that particular quest. So, the final trip out to Silves. The countryside on the way was rolling and with steep sided hills to the river which wound through the town. On foot we climbed our way through the narrow, cobble paved streets up to the Castle. Advertised was an exhibition of artefacts. I had read that the area had been settled by the Romans and the North African Moors and had great expectations of some interesting displays from these tumultuous times in history.  The Castle courtyard set the tone of the exhibition. On a pole hung a large metal cage and hanging out between the bars, an authentic skeleton attired in rags and fake hair, a representation of the fly blown rotting remains of some ancient miscreant. My youngest daughter looked a bit pale, even in the knowledge that the 'thing' was a model. Over the next half hour we were assaulted and shocked by the implements and equipment of an exhibition of the tools of human torture. An iron maiden, various manicles, balls and chains and then the seriously hurty stuff. Homosexuals could face being severed vertically in half ,if caught, by the evidently symbolic two man operation of a big toothed saw. Adultery was similarly treated to horrendously painful and barbaric punishment usually by the attachment of things onto peoples things.There were industrial scale machines to decapitate, hang, draw and quarter, to extract organs and appendages, pull teeth or to extract a confession by scalding, branding, stretching or gouging. Where machines could not be sourced by the Castle there were graphic drawings, diagrams and blueprints for equally nasty appliances to do everything else required to satisfy but mainly thwart the church approved Inquisition or just the sadistic employees.I seriously think that even death by hanging wasconsidered a soft option and was out of fashion given the wide range of alternatives. I doubt that humans could actually think of anything else to add to that chamber of horrors to which we had unwittingly been exposed to. By this time our youngest daughter had fled the scene in sheer terror. The rest of our dumbstruck group sidled out trying not to faint or show too much distress. We blinked as we emerged out of the dungeon into the bright daylight , feeling as though we had been lucky enough to escape a fate certainly worse than the relief in death that would have followed for the poor wretches and souls brought to Silves. For the first time ever in our travels and a fact that remains to the current day we exited a visitor attraction through the gift shop without a single or group intention of making a purchase. We declined to buy a guide book not out of indignation or protest but because we just wanted to get out of the place. The drive back to the sanctuary of the Villa was very quiet. The children were quite clingy for the rest of the evening and extremely well behaved for the short remaining period of the hoilday. Understandably, Portugal has never been proposed for a return visit.