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| Algarve Newsletter |
Week of 12 October |
Your Algarve Week
If you were here this week...
You would smell it before you saw it: sugar, frying dough and roast chestnuts drifting across Largo de São Francisco, where Faro's oldest fair opens on Thursday evening and stays for eleven days. This is the week autumn turns up properly. The days still reach the mid-20s, but the evenings now ask for a jumper and something hot in a bowl.
Loulé has the bowl covered, with three days of soup ladled out by its own associations. Up on the Guadiana, Alcoutim's quay becomes two stages for a free festival that the village's international residents built themselves. And on Saturday the sun is due back in full. Here is the week.
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The Whole Algarve
Our 1,535-page guide to visiting and living here. Get it for €14.99 |
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Top 3 events of the week
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Santa Iria Fair
Where Largo de São Francisco, Faro
When Thursday 15 to Sunday 25 October, opening at 5pm on Thursday. Free entry
Why it's worth it: Faro has held this fair since at least 1596, and it still does what an autumn fair should. The big square beside the old town fills with rides, stalls of dried figs, nuts and traditional sweets, craft and trade pavilions, and a long row of food stands where the farturas come out hot. It normally runs from 2pm to midnight, and to 1am on Fridays and Saturdays, so you can take the children in the afternoon or go late for dinner on your feet.
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São Sopas Sebastião
Where The warehouse beside the Convento de Santo António, Loulé
When Friday 16 to Sunday 18 October. Free entry, soups paid by the bowl
Why it's worth it: A soup festival sounds modest until you see who is cooking. The parish of São Sebastião hands the pots to local associations, clubs and neighbourhood cooks, and each brings the soup it is known for, the kind made at home and rarely seen on a menu. You move from pot to pot with a bowl and a spoon, sharing long tables with half of Loulé. Last year the doors opened at 6pm on Friday and at noon on Saturday and Sunday, with an orchid show alongside.
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Guadiana International Music Festival
Where The river quay, Alcoutim
When Friday 16 to Sunday 18 October, from 8pm on Friday. Free
Why it's worth it: Three days of live music on two stages beside the Guadiana, with Spain a few hundred metres away across the water. More than twenty acts play over the weekend, among them Margem do Rio, Unhappy Mundays, Kosmic Strings and Colin "Lefty" Wright, and Sunday is given over to open mic sessions. It is organised by Alcoutim's foreign community with the municipality, which explains the mood: neighbours playing for neighbours, a drink in hand, boats moored below.
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Weekend guide
Friday 16 October
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Santa Iria Fair
Markets & fairs, Largo de São Francisco, Faro, to 25 October, free
Rides, dried fruit, sweets and food stalls until late. |
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São Sopas Sebastião
Food & drink, Beside the Convento de Santo António, Loulé, to Sunday, free entry
Home-style soups ladled out by Loulé's own associations. |
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GT World Challenge Europe
Sports & outdoor, Autódromo do Algarve, Portimão, Friday to Sunday
GT3 season finale, with open paddock and pit walk. |
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Astronomy Night
Other, Centro Ciência Viva, Lagos, 8pm, free with registration
Saturn, the Moon and Andromeda through a telescope. |
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Saturday 17 October
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Tavira Monthly Market
Markets & fairs, Rua Almirante Cândido dos Reis, Tavira, from 8am
The third-Saturday market, opposite the football ground. |
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Aljezur Producers' Market
Markets & fairs, Espaço Multiusos, Aljezur, from 8am
West coast growers selling what they picked this week. |
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Pedro Abrunhosa
Music, Teatro das Figuras, Faro, 9.30pm, from €34
One of Portugal's great songwriters on his Inverbo tour. |
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Sunday 18 October
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Vila Nova de Cacela Monthly Market
Markets & fairs, Largo Manuel Cabanas, Vila Nova de Cacela, from 8am
Third-Sunday market: produce, plants, clothes and household goods. |
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Travessas
Food & drink, Around 20 restaurants in Lagos, all October, €20
A sharing platter for four, with four drinks included. |
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Frankie Chavez
Music, Cineteatro Louletano, Loulé, 5pm, €12
Blues and folk guitar, with new songs in Portuguese. |
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26th Mamamaratona
Sports & outdoor, Jardim Filipe Jonas, Quarteira, 10am
Charity walk and run for breast cancer support. |
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Next week
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"Art", by Yasmina Reza
Teatro das Figuras, Faro, Thursday 22 October, 9.30pm. Nuno Lopes, Rui Melo and Cristóvão Campos, €20 to €22, book now. |
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Flamenco Soul
Auditório Carlos do Carmo, Lagoa, Saturday 24 October, 7pm. Tickets already on sale. |
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Artists & Fleas
Jardim Patrão Joaquim Lopes, Olhão, Saturday 24 October, 10am to 5pm. Vintage, art and craft market, free. |
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Discover Algarve Atlas
Tickets for November sell out in October. See them first.
Every week readers ask us for more notice, and they are right: the good seats go weeks ahead. With Premium, the Algarve Atlas calendar opens months into the future instead of the next 15 days, so you can see the concerts, festivals and fairs coming in November and December and book before everyone else has heard of them. It comes with the interactive map, the AI trip planner, the chatbot and Sentinelas alerts.
7 days free, then €2.99/month. Cancel any time.
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Media partners: Algarve Daily News
The Whole Algarve, our 1,535-page guide to the region: get it for €14.99
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