. .. or perhaps I should say ‘A vida é assim’. Remember my post on Sunday about the festival, well it turned out there was another reason. We could have made it as we dropped off our lovely guests, Ellie and Louis, at the airport about 3pm, but . . . . . . . . you are going to smile at this . . . . . we completely and utterly forgot about the festival!
We had had such a fun morning exploring the gardens at Palácio de Estoi, followed by a mad rush to squeeze in an exploration of Louis’s abandoned family villa near Valados before going to the airport, that all thoughts of the festival and watching the statue of the Virgin Mary return, simply flew away. We did though see lots of other statues!
So apologies I have no photos of Festa da Mãe Soberana but here are a few lovely random ones of our Sunday, including some of noras.
There will be a more indepth ‘Nora’ post in due course, but to quickly explain. Noras (taken from the Arabic word noria) are wells with mechanical systems to raise and store the water. Quite often they have aqueducts attached, and are very evident in this part of the Algarve. Many though are abandoned or if still working now use motorised pumps rather than mules. My lovely husband is really interested in them, and consequently we are falling into the habit of taking random roads to find new ones to explore!
Despite our memory failure, Sunday really was glorious day and we had great fun. And maybe we’ll try the Festa da Mãe Soberana next year!
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