{"id":5167,"date":"2019-06-29T07:12:25","date_gmt":"2019-06-29T14:12:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/?p=5167"},"modified":"2019-07-31T10:04:56","modified_gmt":"2019-07-31T17:04:56","slug":"porto-festa-de-sao-joao-do-porto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/porto-festa-de-sao-joao-do-porto\/","title":{"rendered":"Porto \u2013 Festa de S\u00e3o Jo\u00e3o do Porto"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Yes,\nanother festival.  They seem to have\nfollowed us from Spain.  And not to be outdone\nby the Spanish, Porto\u2019s Sao Joao is the whole month of June.  So, what is this you ask?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a\nfestival celebrating St. John the Baptiste in Porto and Porto only it seems.  The event, dating back some 600 years seems\nto have a lot of pagan roots but according to Wiki, the St. John part was only\nintegrated in the 19th<\/sup> century. \nIt has since become the most important celebration of the year in\nPorto.  It\u2019s said that it is one of the liveliest\nstreet festivals in the country although not many people outside of Portugal\nknow of it.  And lucky us, we\u2019re here at\nthe right time with a front row seat! \nJust what we needed after the Nations Cup soccer and the NOS music\nfestival!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We have to\nadmit though, it was sorta fun.  The festival\nculminates on Midsummer, June 23rd<\/sup> and it is massive.  Everywhere there are amphitheaters with music,\ncarnivals, parades, bonfires (which people jump over), street food and drink,\nand a bazillion people.  This culminates\nat midnight with fireworks, the largest being off the Ponte Luis I (bridge).  Then the party really gets going.  The bands don\u2019t start up the music until 1am\nand go all night.  We didn\u2019t get to see\nthe bridge fireworks as there were just too many people and you can\u2019t move an\ninch once you are there but there were many other fireworks all over the\ncity.  People also sent up flame-powered\n(candles?) lanterns (thousands) which float in the sky all night.  Basil plants in pots seem to be a thing too\nand while most of them are for sale, some of the events, like the parades, give\nhundreds of them away for free.  As we\nwere close to this happening event, Teresa, being a good little gardener and\nnot one to pass up freebies, rushed down to grab a pot along with many other\npeople.  A little chaotic and I think she\nhad to beat off an old lady to acquire hers, but she did manage to score a plant.  Not sure what the hell we\u2019re going to do with\nit.  It\u2019s not like we can bring it on the\nplane with us.  Heat of the moment, yes?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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There also seems to be a festival tradition of carrying long shoots of fresh garlic (about 6 feet long with the flower at the end) AND plastic hammers.  I kid you not and if you walk around taking in the festivities like we did, be prepared to be bonked on the head by either a garlic plant or a plastic hammer\u2026or both.  I am not making this up\u2026really.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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And lastly, in the wee hours of the morning when the sun starts to rise, there\u2019s the tradition of walking along the river, singing, eating, and drinking, from downtown to the marina district, about 8km.  I guess we\u2019re not traditional.    We made it past mid-night, saw some fireworks, and hit the hay, thankfully suffering no ill affects from the hammer blows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Image from https:\/\/gomadnomad.com\/2010\/06\/22\/the-night-porto-goes-wild\/<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Image from “News Porto”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Image from http:\/\/www.portolazer.pt\/animacao\/festas-de-sao-joao<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yes, another festival.  They seem to have followed us from Spain.  And not to be outdone by the Spanish, Porto\u2019s Sao Joao is the whole month of June.  So, what is this you ask? It\u2019s a festival celebrating St. John the Baptiste in Porto and Porto only it seems.  The event, dating back some 600 years seems to have a lot of pagan roots but according to Wiki, the St. John part was only integrated in the 19th century.  It has since become the most important celebration of the year in Porto.  It\u2019s said that it is one of the liveliest street festivals in the country although not many people…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5212,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5167"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5167"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5167\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5228,"href":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5167\/revisions\/5228"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}