Living in Silves: Why Expats Love Portugal’s Historic Castle Town Artwork

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Living in Silves: Why Expats Love Portugal’s Historic Castle Town

September 25, 2025 • James

What’s it really like to live in Silves — a medieval Algarve town with cobblestone streets, citrus groves, and a red sandstone castle overlooking it all? In this episode, Portugalist takes you on a virtual scouting trip to Silves, Portugal — a place where history meets sunshine, and expats are finding their dream lifestyle.

You’ll hear about the pros and cons of life in Silves, the cost of housing, what families and retirees can expect, and how daily life compares to Portugal’s busier coastal towns. From schools and healthcare to markets and restaurants, this episode will give you the insider’s perspective so you can decide if Silves could be your perfect home abroad.

Whether you’re considering retirement, raising a family overseas, or just dreaming about moving to Portugal, this episode paints a picture of life in one of the Algarve’s most charming and authentic towns.

For more info on living in Silves: https://www.portugalist.com/place/algarve/silves/

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1:00:03

Picture this, you're living in theAlgarve, your 20 minutesdrive from some of the mostbeautiful beaches in the region. Andevery time you go to your town centre,you get to see this.This is the reality of life in Silvish,one of the most beautiful and authentictowns in the Algarve. Now a lot of peoplethink living inland in theAlgarve means missing outon the real Algarve experience, beingable to walk to the beach,things like that. But I'mgoing to show you why Silvish issomewhere that should beon your consideration list.Hi, I'm James, I'm the creator ofPortugalist.com and I'm the author ofMoving to Portugal MadeSimple. I've created this virtualscouting trip series so youcan explore Portugal and figureout where you might want to live. Andtoday for a scouting trip weare visiting Silvish in thecentral Algarve. If you're consideringmoving to Silvish, this videois for you. I'm going to walkyou through the pros and cons of livinghere. And by the end ofit, you should have an ideaof whether this medieval town is rightfor you. Now just to give youa little intro to this town,Silvish is a small city, officially acity, with a population ofaround 11,000 people in the towncentre, though this extends to just under40,000 in the entiremunicipality. It is officially a city,although it's much more of a small town,small enough that you'llrecognise faces at the Saturdaymarket, but big enough that there areenough restaurants andcafes to keep you busy here.The town is famous for its Moorishhistory. You just can't miss that hugered sandstone castlethat dominates the skyline. Silvish wasin fact once thecapital of the Algarve region.The town also has a beautiful cathedral,an old Roman bridge, andit's surrounded by citrusgroves. It's an orange producing regionand produces some of thebest oranges in the wholeof Portugal. Every August there's theSilvish medieval fairwhich transforms the town intoa multi-day long medieval festival. Butwhat's the best thing about living inSilvish? I would sayit's the charm, first of all, the beauty,and also theauthenticity. So there are plenty ofexpats living here. And yes, Silvish doesattract plenty of tourists.I mean with that castle it'shard not to. But there are still plentyof Portuguese people hereand it does have a Portuguesefeel to it. It also doesn't feelcompletely overrun withtourists, and it doesn't becomea ghost town in winter. Now roughly whereis Silvish on a map? Wementioned it's in the centralAlgarve region. So Silvish is locatedabout five miles or eight kilometersinland from the coast.Faro Airport, that's the main airport forthe region, is roughly a45-minute drive away. To getto the nearest beaches, say Praya deMarina for example, it wouldtake around 20 minutes by car.So it's not that far from the coast.Silvish has very muchof a small town vibe,and it's quite peaceful and it's quitequiet. It is busy on themain market day, which isSaturday, and it does attract plenty oftourists during the summer months whomainly come to visitthe castle, the other attractions in thetown, and then go home inthe evening. Overall though,I do think you get that slower pace oflife. The town centreitself is very beautiful. It hascobblestone streets, obviously has thatimpressive castle dominating the skyline,and there's plenty of traditionalPortuguese architecture aswell. More and more people aremoving here, mainly retirees andfamilies. You won't find the digitalnomad community that you'dfind in coastal towns like Lagash andPort of Man, where thereare co-working spaces andnomad meetups. So if you are workingremotely or freelancing, that might bemore of your scene overthere. People do speak English here. Eventhough we're slightlyinland, there is obviously a littlebit less English spoken than on thecoast, but most people will have somelevel of English, ifnot a pretty good level of English. Ithink just in generalEnglish is widely spoken throughoutthe Algarve. Now let's talk about theweather. This is theAlgarve. So 300 days of sunshineper year is not unusual, at leastaccording to the tourismboard. Summers can be quite hot,often reaching 30 degrees Celsius that'sabout 86 Fahrenheit or more.Sometimes it goes up to 35,that's around 95 Fahrenheit. Sometimes itgoes higher. Now here'sthe big difference betweenliving here, inland, and living on thecoast, which is that youdon't get that coastal breeze.So it is going to be slightly hotter herethan it would be on thecoast. Now the big selling pointof Algarve's weather is actually not somuch in summer, unless youlike being particularly warm.It's in winter. Winter time in theAlgarve is pretty mild and prettypleasant. Now temperaturesduring the day are usually around 17-18degrees Celsius. That'sroughly around 64 degrees Fahrenheit.So it's perfect for year-roundactivities. You can go walking, you cango surfing, you can dothings like that in the winter time thatyou wouldn't be able to doin other parts of Europe.Another thing to think about though,getting on with weather,is that in recent yearsthe surrounding countryside in Silvishhas been affected by wildfires,particularly betweenSilvish and the Monchic area. So it issomething to think about,particularly if you are thinkingabout living in the rural part ofSilvish. Okay, so let's take a look athow much it would cost torent or to buy in Silvish. Now we're onIdilishta, which is the main propertywebsite in Portugal.It is a very good place to start yoursearch. I think for rentals at leastyou'll probably haveto go a little wider than this. Mostproperties are included forpurchase on Idilishta, but notnecessarily rentals. So we have typed inSilvish and we've ended upon Silvish municipality first.This is a common thing in Portugal wheretowns and cities have thesame name as the area. We needto narrow it down a little bit further.Even now we are on the sortof area surrounding Silvishincluded. So if you were not going tohave a car for example, thismight be a little bit too farout. But for the purpose of this let'stake a look at the 11 propertiesavailable to rent here. Nowthat isn't a huge number. We're going toselect T2, which is a two bedroomproperty. T0 is a studio,T1 is a one bedroom. And we're also goingto select long-termresidential because we don't wantshort-term rentals if we're going to livehere, especially if weneed the property for visapurposes. And just to sort by lowestprice. So first things first,we do see a mobile home there.I'm just going to skip over that one andgo straight to the firstproperty, which is a T2.So a two bedroom property does look likeit has air conditioningthere, which is a good thing.Potentially a little small. We can seethat the living room andthe kitchen are quite closetogether. Not unusual in Portugal orEurope, but that gives us anidea of what that property islike. We can see there's another one for1200. This looks like ithas been renovated recently.It's nice and clean and white. Sostarting from around a thousand euros amonth, at 1900 it lookslike you can get a T2 with a swimmingpool. These properties do look verysimilar. They could evenbe the same one. And then we jump up to3000 euros a month. So weget an idea there that thereisn't a huge number of propertiesavailable. We would need tolook a little bit further,but starting from around about a thousandeuros a month. Now, if wego to buy in Silvish, we'regoing to get a lot more options.Typically people are more likely to listthe property to buy onIdilishte. So the first few propertiesthat we see, again we'regoing to go for a T2, the firstfew that we see at the lowest price lookto be ruins. So if you'relooking for something to do up,something to consider, but let's see howmuch it would cost to we getto something that is actuallylivable. So this at 130,000 doesn't looktoo bad, probably stillneeds quite a bit of work. Well,it does need the doors put on at leastand looks like it needs quite a bit ofcleaning. Okay, thisis still in the renovation category.We're jumping up to 160,000 euros now. Ihaven't seen inside theproperty yet. Here we go. It looks likeit's potentially dated andwould need some renovations,but more livable. 160,000 that is in needof renovations. Looks likethese two here are ruins.Now we're up to 180,000 for a T4. Thislooks very cute in thecountryside. We haven't seen insideit yet, which does suggest that it mightneed work done. Then wejump up to 190,000. Okay,so this is a T2. The actual listing saysT4. It's listed there as aT2. Not sure what we're goingto end up with. Looks like a nice coat ofyellow on the outside.Lovely algarve colors. Okay, sonow we're inside. Beautiful Portuguesetiles. Beautiful woodenceilings there. This is a verytypical algarve looking property. Lookslike it would be nice and itwould be suitable for livingstraight away. So that's about 200,000.We can see another one. Thisone hasn't definitely hasn'tbeen developed yet. So it looks like200,000 is sort of the starting point,but probably going upfrom that. So that does start to give usan idea of what propertyprices would be like if you wereto consider living in Silvish. Now youmay be wondering whatgrocery stores are there. Thereare two main supermarkets here. There's acontinent and there's alittle. Both are walkable from thecenter, which is great. Although thelittle is a little easier to walk to,there are also smallerconvenience stores throughout the town aswell. Between the two youshould have most of the thingsthat you need. About a 20 minute driveaway over at Algarve Shopping you willfind the food companywhich stocks British foods and otherinternational foods. Now you might beinterested to know thatthere is a municipal market here. Itoperates daily except Sundaysand it's pretty much biggeston Saturdays. Here you'll find freshlocal fruits, vegetables, fish, seafood,meat and poultry, breadand local pastries. It's a very popularmarket and worth visiting even if youdecide not to live inSilvish. There are other shopping placesnearby. So we mentionedAlgarve Shopping as well as havingshops like the food company. You alsohave plenty of clothes shops there.Bigger grocery store.That's around 20 minutes away. AquaShopping in Port Amman isalso around 20 minutes away.Plenty of clothes stores there and a bighyper market as well. Andif you want to drive a littlefurther over to Marr Shopping near Faroe,there's more thereincluding a Nike nearby.Is it walkable? Yes, it is very muchwalkable. Now the town ofSilvish is built on a hillso the hill does go up to the castle andobviously that bit isgoing to be steeper andit is cobblestone so you need to keepthat in mind. The mainstreets in the town centre at thebottom of the hill, which is where thetown centre is mainlylocated, those are flatter. However,do keep in mind that there is a hillthere and there arecobblestone streets so there could bemobility issues to consider there. Now alot of people ask, would I need a car?Public transport does exist here. Sothere is a train station.Silvish has a train stationbut it's located around two kilometresoutside of the town centrewhich is just far enough tonot be convenient. You can get taxis toand from but it's not ideal.There are some buses as well.That might be easier because the buses docome through the towncentre. However, they may not befrequent enough for everyday convenience.So you could live here carfree but to visit the nearbybeaches, to explore places like Monchic,to really get to see the Algarve, itwould be a lot easierif you had a car. Now in terms of healthcare there is a localhealth centre in Silvish whichcovers routine care. For major hospitalsyou'd need to go a littlebit further. Thankfully thehospital in Portimaun is only around a 20minute drive. That's thenearest major public hospital.There's also a public hospital in Faro.That's a little furtherat around 45 minutes drive.And then there are several privatehospitals in the areaincluding the hospital particularthe Algarve which is roughly 20 to 30minutes drive away fromSilvish. So let's take a lookat school options. So for this exampleI'm looking at Publicogoes up to 2024 at the momentand I'm just going to take a look to seewhat is available inSilvish. So as we can see there isjust one school coming up. It is ranked260. It's roughly out of 500 or so.Interestingly enough itisn't including the international schoolsin there. This is thesecondary school. This is agood secondary school by Algarvestandards but it is just one option. Butit is good to know thatthere is at least one option. Now I oftenlook at observador as welland they have the secondaryschool in Silvish as well. They've givenit a ranking of 373. So atleast in the Silvish areayou are basically limited to one school.If you stay in thismunicipality you could potentiallylook at schools in the nearbymunicipalities but it might be harder toget into them just becauseyou don't live in that area and also youwould be more likely toneed to at least drive yourkids to school. You wouldn't be able torely on school buses orthings like that. It would be alittle bit more difficult to do. Now I'malso going to look at internationalschools. So let's seewhat we have available. We can take alook at the international schoolsavailable in the Algarveusing this website which is internationalschools database. So we cansee that there is at leastone in Silvish here which is the Dutchschool. We get a little ideaof what the yearly fees wouldbe like there. If we click here we cansee this is the Germanschool. The school does not list itsfees but we can see that that would bewithin driving distance.So Dutch school right in thecenter of Silvish, German school a littlebit outside. Here we havethe Nobel Algarve BritishInternational School. One of the earliestinternational schoolsin the Algarve area.This proximity to all of these differentinternational schoolsmakes Silvish a verypopular option for families. Now in termsof eating out I mentionedthere is a good selectionof restaurants here. The majority ofthese focus on traditional Portuguesefood. There's a famousseafood restaurant for example calledMarisca Rui. But there are a fewinternational options here aswell. For example Italian. However if youhave a car and this is whyhaving a car is so importantin the Algarve you can easily live hereand then drive 20-30minutes to a coastal townand take advantage of what's on offerthere. So who wouldSilvish be right for? I would saySilvish is a good option for someone whowants history, who wantscharm and who wants a slowerpace of life. Someone who has a carideally and doesn't mind driving to thebeach and most otherplaces. So for retirees this is a goodchoice. The costs of housing aretypically lower than the coast.It's a beautiful historical setting. It'sa manageable size. It'sreasonably walkable. Idid mention the hill there. There's agood proximity to healthcare. Things like that.For families as well we mentionedschooling. There's excellent schoolingoptions. Particularlyinternational schools nearby. It's safe.You do need to factor inschool runs if you are thinkingabout international schools because eachof those are a short driveoutside of the town center.For digital nomads maybe not the bestchoice. Obviously you cancome here if you want but youwould be limited on things likeco-working spaces. There isn't really adigital nomad community here.If you want co-working spaces, if youwant to be close by otherremote workers and digital nomads,you'd be better off looking at somewherelike Lagos or maybePortamam where there are moreestablished remote work communities. Butif you like things likewalking, if you like exploring,if you like history, this is a perfectplace to base yourself. Nowif you're considering Silvishyou're probably looking for somewherequaint, somewhere charming,somewhere that has a littlebit of history. In terms of other placesthat I would consider, Iwould look at Tevira for example.Now Tevira is more touristic. It is morepopular but it is right onthe water so it's a little bitcooler. It's closer to Faro and it'scloser to the eastern Algarve which meansyou're also closer toSpain. It does have a good amount ofhistory and historical buildings here.The town has been wellpreserved and it is very pretty. Lule isanother option. It has acastle there. It also has a famousweekly market. The market day can be verybusy but otherwise itisn't too touristy. It has asimilar historical feel, maybe not quiteas charming but it islarger than Silvish.Another option would be Algizur,particularly if you'reinterested just in castles. It is muchsmaller and the castle ruins aren't quiteas impressive but it ison the west coast whichis perfect if you love surfing or youlove walking and it is alittle bit more isolated.You'd need to go to somewhere like Lagashor even Portimán for a lotmore of the services that youwant. And then Faro. So Faro is now thecapital of the Algarve andthis is the main city here.This is definitely larger than Silvishbut it does have severalhistorical attractions. It hasplenty of built up buildings. It doeshave some of the high rises but it alsohas plenty of the oldfishermen's cottages, beautiful churches,things like that. It's alsoclose to Faro airport. It'sclose to the Ria Formosa natural park andit's not too far fromSpain. Now if you liked thisvideo and I hope you did, here's what todo next. Be sure to like andsubscribe. That way you'll getnotified when there's more Portugalistcontent, particularly aboutplaces where you could live inthe Algarve or in the rest of Portugal.Check out portugalist.comwhere you'll find a free coursethat'll teach you everything you need toknow about moving toPortugal. For example, which visashould you get? Do you need to rent anapartment before you movehere? How do you open a bankaccount? You'll find all of thatinformation at portugalist.com as well asmore information aboutSilvish, other Algarve towns and otherplaces in Portugal. Now tellme in the comments what areyour biggest concerns about livingslightly inland versus on the coast? Doyou think Silvish is rightfor you? I read every comment and oftencreate videos based on yourquestions. Thanks for watchingthis and bye for now.