The shortest day and the longest night of the year in the Northern Hemisphere, and so if the weather is right the 21st December is a great day for sunrises and sunsets as you don’t need to get up to early or stay out in the cold too late!
It wasn’t a great lead up to sunrise this morning but it was still good enough to keep me out on the marina wall for over half hour. And I wasn’t alone as it was low tide and so the ‘cocklers’ were heading in out in their boats into the Ria Formosa. Every few minutes the stillness of the water was broken by ripples from the boats.
I am not aware of any solstice festivals here in the Algarve however we will have a few things happening on 6th January for epiphany and if you are in the north of Portugal then you are even more fortunate as they have a few unusual winter festivals approaching before then. Just check out this.
By the way if you follow my other blog then you may have spotted this is my Portuguese entry for this month’s #timesquare. I had to include at least one here, and what better than an Algarvian winter sunrise!
