On Wednesday (13th May) we went to Vila Real de Santo António to join in their Founding of the City celebrations. The city was founded in 1774 by the Marques de Pombal and was completed less than 2 years later! We arrived in Vila Real in time to join hundreds of people along the water front in the afternoon sunshine for the historical parade at 4pm - dare we say it - Portuguese time!
The parade was really excellent and gave snapshots of life through the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries starting in the 18th century with the "Marquês de Pombal" in his horse drawn coach and finishing with the Carnation Revolution of 1974. There were jugglers and unicyclists, "Lords and Ladies", working folk through the centuries, gentlemen on horseback, glamorous ballroom dancers, early cars and Vespa scooters! As the saying goes - a picture speaks a thousand words - so take a look at the photos in our events album! (There will be a video clip following shortly).
After the parade was over it was time for the Feira Iluminista - a traditional 18th century style market in the Praça Marquês de Pombal. This was a very popular affair with entertainment, eats and drinks and some really tempting stalls. Handmade jewellery and baskets, a wide variety of items carved from wood and jars of local honey were just some of the things that caught our eye. The stalls with freshly made cakes and biscuits or chouriço breads fresh from the oven were particularly popular and always had sizeable queues! Very thoughtfully there were also lots of tables and benches in the centre of the square.
Groups of musicians kept us entertained and amazingly a beautiful owl in the falconry display area managed to nod off, despite all the noise! All in all we thoroughly enjoyed the day - Vila Real is a lovely city and well worth visiting at any time of the year. To give you some idea of distances in the Algarve, it takes us just 1 hour and 10 minutes (approximately!) from Lagos to Vila Real and that's keeping (approximately again!) to the speed limits.