Event attracted 7,000 people to village with just 50 residents
Organisers have hailed the success of Castro Marim’s almond blossom hiking festival ‘Festival das Amendoeiras em Flor’, which has held in Alta Mora between February 3 and 5.
The event was organised by the Recreational, Cultural and Sports Association of the Friends of Alta Mora (ARCDAA), which has revealed that around 7,000 people visited the tiny village during the festival’s three days.
“Our goal was 5,000 but we reached 7,000 visitors, an incredible number for an inland village with less than 50 residents,” organisers said, stressing the role that volunteers played in the success of the event.
Around 100 volunteers helped out, including many local elderly residents who for one month “actively and proudly” took part in the preparations.
During the three-day runtime, the event brought a market with around 65 local producers and 35 craftspeople to the village. There were also musical, dance and theatre performances as well as 10 hikes, a photography exhibition, a giant 41-metre-long ‘torta de amêndoa’ (almond roll), and the planting of 75 almond trees in Alta Mora.
The event uses the Algarve’s beloved almond blossoms to “promote and revitalise the values, traditions and identity of the territory,” its goal being to “fight desertification” and the galloping depopulation of the Algarve’s inland mountains.
The festival also aims to become one of the big cultural events of the Algarve during the so-called low season by shining the spotlight on “one of the most emblematic Algarvian products: the almond.”
It is a spiritual successor to the series of hikes previously known as ‘Amendoeiras em Flor’ (Almond Blossoms), which had been held since 2005.
