The Festas do Povo de Campo Maior photo album is filling up nicely, which means it’s time to set it free. It’s too large to show as a slide show within this post, so I point you to the album in Flickr to see the rest.
The paper artistry extends beyond flowers: there was a street decorated like a farm with paper pigs and cows, a wine-themed street with paper grapevines and barrels, paper swans and bullfighters, wishing wells and paper tapestries. Someone even decided to build a cardboard tank in front of the castle!
The Alentejo Region is hot and dry, perfect for an event built around paper, but I did wonder what would happen if and when rain entered the forecast. The event is over eight days, there’s some likelihood for precipitation. Do they have an emergency plan to uninstall within a few hours and then reinstall when the threat of rain passes? The committee has been working on this event since January, I’m assuming they have a rain plan. Let’s hope they don’t have to implement it.
It was an 1,100km round trip for us to attend this event, but Festas do Povo de Campo Maior only takes place every four years. Considering there are around 20 kilometres of paper decorations, you can see why! We arrived before 10 o’clock in the morning, left around six o’clock in the afternoon, and we still didn’t get to see everything. The level of detail and painstaking work behind these displays isn’t for money (the entrance fee is only €4), it’s truly a labour of love by the people of Campo Maior.
Long live the arts in every corner of Portugal!
Event info (August 22-30, 2015): http://festasdopovo.pt/
August 23, 2015
Album: Festas do Povo de Campo Maior [August 2015]
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