Guadiana: smuggling festival on the river banks (Alcoutim and Sanlúcar of the Guadiana / Huelva).
Of 24 a 26 March, Alcoutim and Sanlucar del Guadiana (Huelva) recovering a tradition that marked the life of the peoples of the border area of ​​Portugal and Spain, or contraband, and transform it into a cultural initiative.
The initiative to animate all public and to both sides of the border, and called as Contraband Festival, which takes place this year for the first time and aims to be much more than a festival.
It's a great opportunity to enjoy the natural heritage that you can enjoy on both banks of the River Guadiana, through numerous paths, sights and border Tyrolean Alcoutim (not only world), which for years it was an inhospitable place that smugglers challenging day and night.
In memory of those days and people, Alcoutim and Sanlúcar will be the scene of this festival you want to convey this cultural and natural heritage in common, recreating the daily life of years 30 and 40. The event also includes street entertainment, shows, Offices, exhibitions, arts and crafts music and concerts. A schedule that will allow the visitor to travel back in time and discover a way of life that marked the area and the separate populations and simultaneously joined by the Guadiana river.
The Contraband Festival has the ingredients a unique natural setting, two destinations, two countries and ongoing cultural events. The program highlights is a unique attraction that just can live these days: cross via a pedestrian bridge the Guadiana river, natural border between Portugal and Spain.
pedestrian bridge will link Alcoutim and San Lucar in the Smuggling Festival
Cross the river Guadiana walk, to go from Alcoutim to San Lucar, will be possible in three days of Contraband Festival - Guadiana Arts Trafficking, cultural event which will run from 24 a 26 March this county Algarvian Northeast. A floating pedestrian bridge will be installed by alcouteneja House, organized or event, for easy and safe movement between the two banks of the river and the two countries that this separates.
The installation of this bridge was the way found by Alcoutim to attract further public, and both sides of the border, this event with the program seal 365 Algarve, you want to revisit and celebrate the past this border county, where smuggling held, a given height, a prominent place. Despite being an activity with a strong commercial bias (and illegal), the contrabandismo was also promoter of cultural exchanges between Portugal and Spain, aspect that will be explored in this festival, as the name of the initiative suggests.
To achieve all this, Alcoutim will invest "about 130 a thousand euros", budget that contemplates both the festival program itself, as the installation of the bridge. "As part of the application we made to 365 Algarve, we have a Tourism Region contribution of about 87 a thousand euros", justified Osvaldo Gonçalves, President of the Chamber Alcoutim.
