This Saturday, a group of volunteers dedicated themselves to a “citizenship action”: whitewashing the old bridge in Silves.
In all, nearly a dozen people dedicated themselves to whitewashing the old bridge – the so-called Roman bridge, but actually of medieval origin – that crosses the Arade River in front of the city of Silves, closed to car traffic for years and classified as «heritage of interest to the municipality».
The citizenship and volunteer action was called by Manuel Castelo Ramos, former CDU councilor at the Silves Chamber, professor, social activist and director of the – long closed – Cork Museum in Silves.
But the work of the group of 11 volunteers was not complete. According to Manuel Ramos, only a third of the whitewashing was done, although they also cut the reeds and brambles that invade the bed of the Arade, near the arches of the bridge. In the middle of the vegetation, they discovered garbage, a lot of garbage...
Therefore, the volunteers promise that they will get back to work next Saturday, to try to finish the task. A job that is not easy, since, for example, it is necessary to take advantage of the low tide to place, with some safety, the ladder to whitewash the highest arch of the bridge.
O Sul Informação monitored the start of work on Saturday morning. «It was a Herculean work, and daring, for the 11 braves who responded in a happy and enthusiastic way to the call. It's a pity that among the brave, most were not even Silvenes! Symptomatic!», commented Manuel Castelo Ramos, in his blog Saco de Desabafos ( http://sacodosdesabafos.blogspot.com/2011 ).
The volunteers were people of all ages. One of the whitewashers was young Maria João, who was there, whitewashing brush in hand, among the reeds and brambles, covered with drips of lime in her hair, face and clothes, working side by side with her mother, Paula, and stepfather, António.
António, a sculptor, commented “the state in which this bridge is found is disgraceful! This is heritage! So much money wasted and so much honor for second-rate intellectuals and the things that are fundamental are not done in this city!»
Upstairs, another volunteer was whitewashing the bridge's upper wall and asking, “Is this going all right? It's just that I've never fallen…» But what was lacking in practice, there was a lot of goodwill left over, so during working hours in the hot sun, the volunteers managed to whitewash a third of the old Silves bridge.
According to Manuel Castelo Ramos, the objective of this citizens' initiative is to «preserve and preserve a monument of municipal interest (which, by the way, the heritage law says belongs to any of us), which has been completely abandoned for seven years, at risk of collapsing , which in the past had six arches and now we can barely see three (the others seem to be private property!), ex-libris of a city that doesn't even paint (or falls), target of vandalism and graffiti».
“No one can seriously complain about the desilting of the Arade River and let the historic bridge that crosses it reach the state it has reached, the siltation of its arches, the garbage dump and the neglect that its spans cover. Stoves, water heaters, bicycles, bottles and plastic by the kilos, trees, brambles, reeds and, I don't know, everything grows under one of the oldest and most visible monuments in the city», he continues.
«But, as they say, “out of sight, out of mind”…»
The whitewashing of the medieval bridge in Silves has already had a lateral and somewhat unexpected result. like the Sul Informação found (see photo), one of the arches has several stones at risk of falling, allegedly due to a water pipe under municipal responsibility that still crosses the bridge and which is broken and dripping water permanently, threatening the bridge's centuries-old structure. In addition to the falling stones, the fungus stain caused by the water that escapes from the pipeline is visible…
On the same day that this group of volunteers was dedicated, under the critical and lazy eye of many sylvans, to whitewash the old bridge, a group of employees from the municipality of Silves was collaborating on the painting of the façade of the former Loubite School and on the arrangements of its outdoor space, within the scope of the Municipality's Social Responsibility Program. Who knows if the next volunteer action promoted in this area will not be the conservation of the old bridge in Silves…
See more photos at Photo gallery here beside —>
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