MADEIRAMAZING | BOAVENTURA FESTIVITIES

21 jan BOAVENTURA FESTIVITIES

Geplaatst op 21:52h in cultuur door Madeiramazing 0 Reactie's

While searching for the start of our Boaventura hike, we drove through the small village centre. Much to our surprise, the streets where filled with people decorating the town with flowers and flower garlands.

DECORATED STREETS

In Madeira, a festival means: flowers, thousands of them! People use fresh flowers to make flower carpets for the streets. These carpets can be hundreds of meters long, decorating several streets and squares. Creating these carpets takes many hours, with large groups of people working vigorously under the warm sun. The results are gorgeous!

We really enjoy the ambiance of these Madeira’s traditional festivities, so whenever we encounter one, we make sure to spend some time there. So, when we saw the beginning of the Boaventura festivities, we quickly parked our car in one of the side streets and walked through the town centre to the starting point of our hike. On our way there, we walked through the decorated streets. At the church square, people were still working hard to get all the preparations ready.

BACK TO OUR CAR

Unsuspecting, a few hours later, after our nice coastal hike, we arrived back at our rental car. Around our car, there was a large gathering of people, carefully placing flowers in the street, working on another flower carpet!

wandeling boaventura feestversieringen straat

The street on the rear end of the car was already fully covered and people were getting ready to continue the carpet past our car. We were about to be surrounded. Fortunately, we got there just in time to get our car out of the street and after driving around several of the streets around the town centre, we were able to find ‘the exit’. Only fifteen minutes later, the entire town was shut down for all traffic. Lesson learned, when encountering preparations for Madeira festivities: always ask if it’s safe to park somewhere.

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