River beaches in Central Portugal
In July children are free from school until mid September. The municipal organises week activities to bridge the gap. The whole week it starts from 9:00-18:00. In these summer weeks there are nice activities to different beaches, river beaches and swimming pools. When I went to a nice river beach with my friend, there was a group of summer campers! There is a chance that a group of children from a summer camp visit it too but it is nice to relax near the cold water. In July the river beaches and beaches are getting busy, they are also officially opened. This means there are life guards! We went a few times around noon and then it is not really crowded. For us it is perfect, we go early in the afternoon and when it gets more busy, we head home again. It is getting busy well after lunch around 15:00. If we head home around five or six o’clock it is enough.
Trails to Waterfall and Conimbriga
When we do the walks to the waterfall (which is dry in summer) in Condeixa, we always enjoy the walking trails from our home to Condeixa-Conimbriga. It is a dirt path with only nature, and passing the Roman historical site Conimbriga. It is always popular, and lots of families are visiting. Now they made a nice path and stairs to visit it safely. It is certainly better than a few years ago, it was always dangerous when it rained. And for children it was difficult to get to the waterfall.
When you like history, a visit to Rabacal mosaics, is also very interesting.
Summer weeks in Ansiao
Since we moved to Central Portugal, Cinta participates two weeks in the Ansiao summer camps. They organise is for six weeks and every child may participate for two weeks. It looks like all of here school buddies from Alvorge and from the swimming competition participate. It is well organised. There is a schoolbus picking her up at 8:30 and bring her back at 18:00. There is warm food every afternoon, and there is a lanche de tarde, the snack around 16:00. You will not believe it: they ask 25 euros for a week of fun, food, and transport!
This August, the library of Condeixa also organises a summer week. A more cultural one, where they visit some museums. Let’s see how this one will be.
Festa in Every Village
In every village there is a festa. Every weekend you can go to a festa in one of the surrounding villages. There are nice Portugese snacks, some folk dancing but the only negative thing for me, is that the music starts very late, later than 23:00 and DJ’s start after midnight. When there is a party that starts early, we will go but we have early bedtimes, also in weekends. We are visiting during the afternoon and will skip the night performances.
Have a close look to the mini spinning wheel, next to the podium. It is always interesting to see, that closer to the opening time and even after, they are still building things and all tests are being done while the festa is already opened:-). Just relax here in Portugal and enjoy.
Start of July we had our ‘first’ the festa of the year of our village Ribeira de Alcalamouque two days. Last weekend there was another festa, it was our bigger neigbhouring village Vale Florido that partied 3 days. Next week in will be the city Ansiao 4 days. There will be an open activity day in the swimming pool and cinema for children and lots of other activities.
We only missed the festa in Alvorge, that is our main village. May be it still has to come, I really don’t know anymore because there are lots of festas.
For tourists it is great to be part of these festas. There is folk dancing, the adults and children give these shows, and they sing too. I you like to feel the Portuguese culture, you need to be here on these festas!
