FESTIVALS OF VIANA DO CASTELO

TravelTailors offers you a unique cultural experience: participating in a great popular festival in Portugal. The

festivities in honour of Our Lady of Agony are the most popular and lively around all of Minho. They take place in the third week of August and include several parades with big heads Gigantones, zes-pereiras and a diverse choice of regional costumes and gold jewellery.

Find out more in our complete program: Festivals of Viana do Castelo.

The festivities in honor of Our Lady of Agony are the most popular and lively around all of Minho. They take place in the third week of August and include several parades with big heads, Gigantones, zes-pereiras, floats and a diverse choice of regional costumes, especially the necklaces, earrings and gold bracelets of women. This is considered the festival of the pilgrimage festivals. The cult of Our Lady of Agony goes back to the 18th century, with the first written reference to this event dating from 1744. Its essential trait is the devotion of the people of the sea, that reciprocate the graces received during storms or shipwrecks. Hence the main float was traditionally carried by fishermen and only since 1968 a fluvial procession began to be made, with the image of the saint, up the river Lima. Besides all these events, the fireworks, launched by the river Lima, are a unique show.

Throughout all day there will be countless activities and parades to delight anyone's view. The Historical and Ethnographic Parade takes place on the Avenue of the Combatants of the Great War, and the parade of costumes and stewardship go through several city streets.They are identified by the covered and worked towels that are hung on the balconies of the inhabitants.

Only since 1893 have Zabumba and Zes Pereiras, as well as Gigantones and Cabeçudos, entered the Pilgrimage. Colossal and grotesque figures, the Gigantones betray their remote and popular origin. Kings of the Party, they liven up the consecrated Pilgrimage revues that take placeevery year, at noon, on the Republic Square to the sound of a hundred bombs - and constitute the most garrulous and lurid procession of Alto Minho's imagery. Be amazed by the amount of gold that is worn these days and that parades around town! You can't leave without tasting the fried pastry Bola de Berlim from the Natario Bakery, known as the best in Portugal.