Festival time

Seems like this year has simply flown by as it is already festival time in Santa Luzia again.

I have diligently searched the web for details of this years festival and have drawn a complete blank. This is something I will definitely have to put right and whilst it is now too late to publicise this years festival you can be sure I will post plenty of info on next years bash.

The festival takes place usually on the second weekend in August starting on the Friday evening and ending on the Monday.
The full length of the promenade is lined with stalls selling local crafts and all manner of merchandise and a large stage is erected at the western end of the village for the nightly outdoor entertainment.
We will be arriving in Santa Luzia on the 6th of August and staying for 8 days so as well as enjoying the festival I will have plenty of time to check out any progress on the new harbour and any other developments in the village.

Traditionally the festival attracts thousands of Portuguese visitors to the village but this year we are confidently expecting many more foreign visitors.
When we first discovered Santa Luzia it was a closely guarded Portuguese secret, a search engine enquiry "Santa Luzia" would bring up nothing on this village. Try it now (go on there is a search box on this page) and you get a plethora of sites offering holiday accommodation and, hopefully pretty high in the ranking, this blog.

If you want to catch the festival this year it commences on 8th of August and flights are still plentiful and if you search hard enough reasonably cheap. By booking our outward flight with Jet2.com and our return with Thomas Cook we have achieved it for just £136 each........not bad for the height of the season.

I just have to say though that the day the law is changed so that airlines have to simply tell you the price and not add on all those not so little surprises at each stage of the booking process can not come too soon. You waste hours looking at £29.99 flights that turn out to be £129.99.

I run a pub and if I advertised beer for sale at £1-00 a pint then when you got to the till added 50p for getting it in a glass 50p for sitting on a chair 50p for gas and electric and just for good measure 10p for actually taking your payment I would get the book (and probably the beer) thrown at me.

Movers & Shakers

In my last blog "A tale of two pontoons" I touched on some of the changes in business ownership in Santa Luzia. In the years that we have been visiting the local economy has undergone something of a transformation with the old industries of fishing and agriculture slowly shrinking and the new tourism and commerce sectors advancing.

A number of new businesses have been launched and some existing ones have undergone or are undergoing refurbishment and transformation.

I wrote in a previous blog,"Developments" about the little Cafe Santa Luzia on Av. Enginero Duarte Pacheco (The Promenade), which under new ownership has been transformed into a vibrant inviting bar compared to it's previously dark foreboding and frankly quite shabby persona.

Customers take the cool evening air outside the transformed Cafe Santa Luzia

Next door to Cafe Santa Luzia a similar transformation has occurred at Snack Bar Anna-Raquel under the stewardship of Feliz Berto (Happy Bert). Berto has done a sterling job on the formerly vastly under trading bar by introducing reasonably priced snacks, including soups which the Portuguese adore, an Internet terminal , large screen TV and brighter lighting.

Berto himself is a very accommodating, warm and friendly man but always seems to have a slightly worried look on his face which is why he presumably earned the nickname happy Bert.

Further down the promenade stands Casa Do Polvo, opened in late 2006 it was an immediate success, unlike the next door O Marinarho which opened in 2007 and traded for barely one season, the premises then being acquired by Casa Do Polvo who trade there under the logo Casa O Lado (literally meaning The House Next Door).

A semi derelict property on Largo Da Igreja, The Church Square, was completely refurbished by local builder Manuel in 2006 and opened as Cafe Da Villa selling freshly baked bread, snacks, coffees and drinks and quickly established itself as a favourite haunt of Local Portuguese, tourists and ex-pats alike. Feliz Berto acquired the lease on this business in 2007 adding it as the second string to his Santa Luzian business empire.


Cafe Da Villa where locals tourists and ex pats alike spend the hours sipping coffee and watching the world go by.

Freshly baked bread can be obtained here every morning and Berto has also installed the villages second internet terminal.

Just around the corner on Rua Marchal Gomes Da Coasta stands Arco Iris (Rainbow) a small coffee and snack bar opened in 2007 by the former owners of Cafe Kate Kero the popular bar on the social housing complex to the rear of the village. Joan and I were among if not the first customers and call in every time we are back in Santa Luzia. The owners are very accommodating and also very tolerant of my non too perfect attempts at conversation in Portuguese.

Back on the promenade meanwhile both Snack Bar Stop and Cafe Infante Henrique are undergoing refurbishment and Capelo the largest and busiest restaurant in the village has had a complete re-fit and seems certain to maintain it's position as the No.1 eatery in town.

A newly refurbished Capelo awaits the summer crowds who will patiently queue to dine here.

The new apartment developments at the western end of the village, which appeared to have all but stalled a couple of years ago, are all back on course with many of them complete or very near completion.

The former owner of Casa Da Ria, the villages only bed and breakfast accommodation, (Now trading under the name of Casa Oriente), Jorge Herrman, has, along with English partners established an apartment management company to promote and let the new buildings.

The occupation of these units along with the removal of the old sewage treatment plant and its associated stench from the western end of the village and the redevelopment of the western end of the promenade last year should give this part of the village a new lease of life.

The sign outside Jorge Herrman's Ria Beach office.

As reported in my last blog "A tale of two pontoons" the ferry and water taxi landing point has also been moved up to the western end of the village to facilitate the installation of a new harbour in the east and the re-construction of the eastern end of the promenade.

This will create opportunities for bars, cafes, shops and restaurants which due to the previously mentioned sewage stench are sadly lacking at this end of the village.

All told things are moving apace in santa Luzia which looks set to become a real tourist magnet though hopefully the lessons learned during the development of Cabanas to the east of Tavira will be applied to prevent the village loosing it's essential charm and character.