Stories

Thematic stories from the town's history — read or listen chapter by chapter, at home or on location.

Jewish Tavira — A Hidden History

By Flemming Berthelsen

For centuries a Jewish community of doctors, goldsmiths, merchants and notaries helped shape Tavira — until the royal edict of 1496 forced everyone to convert or leave. This story follows their traces through four places in the old town: the square where their history is on display today, the walled town that held the medieval judiaria, the convent built over the likely site of their synagogue, and the river that carried the persecuted towards new lives abroad. On the map you will also find the field west of the old town where their burial ground is thought to have lain.

4 chapters45 min

Flour, Bread and Machines — Industrial Tavira

By Flemming Berthelsen

Tavira is a city of churches — yet for eighty-five years two factories milled the town's flour behind a convent wall and a riverside façade. A short walk across both bridges, to the little mill that became a hotel and the great one that became apartments: the story of why Tavira never became an industrial town, and what the few factories left behind. Adapted by Flemming Berthelsen, based on research by Carlos Manuel Faísca.

5 chapters50 min

How to Read a House — Tavira's Homes Through 600 Years

By Flemming Berthelsen

Tavira's houses look quiet. But behind the white façades hide building contracts from the eighteenth century, a forgotten Gothic doorway, a chapel on the second floor and the city's medieval wall itself. This walk teaches you to read the houses the way historians read archives — clue by clue, street by street. When you finish, you will be able to decode any street in town on your own. The story is based on research by Sandra Romba and Miguel Reimão Costa.

8 chapters90 min