Cacela Velha - Old Cacela

Cacela Velha - Old Cacela

Just doing some experimentation with regular photos.
My first passion is pencil drawing, photography came as an natural extention or evolution.

Old Cacela - The typical house colors of Algarve.

Cacela Velha was once open to the sea, with the mouth of the Pedra Alva river making a small harbour. It was settled in Roman times and was a centre for fish salting. During the Moorish period (7th - 13th centuries) defensive ramparts were built. Cacela Velha was the first point in the Algarve conquered by the knights of the Order of Sant'Iago under Paio Peres Correia in 1240. It was from here that the knights aided the army of King Afonso III in conquering, and extending Portuguese rule, to the whole of the rest of the Algarve by the end of the decade. Cacela was granted a town charter in 1283. The town's fortune waned with the gradual silting of the harbour and the formation of the sand barrier of the Manta Rota peninsula, causing a gradual decline in the town's population. Cacela was then devastated in the great earthquake of 1755. The village you see today dates from the end of the 18th Century.

Fonts: www.eastoffaro.com/Travel_Guide/Towns/Cacela