Easter Sunday is celebrated with great fervour in São Bras de Alportel with the exuberant Easter Festival. The men of this inland town carry decorated torches while running through the streets shouting Hallelujah. When they reach the parish Church, the flowers are carefully laid out on the floor so the priest may walk over them.

Fátima is Roman Catholic Portugal's most powerful symbol of religious devotion. On 13 May 1917 the Virgin Mary reportedly made her first visit to three shepherd children in the fields near to near to the town. Today more than four million people make the pilgrimage here. A candlelight procession takes place through the town to the Sanctuary on 12 May, culminating in the Adeus ("farewell") procession the following day. As the Virgin Mary is carried from the high altar to the Chapel of the Apparitions, the crowd becomes emotional, waving farewell with white handkerchiefs. It is an extraordinary sight.

Night of 23 Jun and the afternoon of 24 Jun Nowhere in Portugal is the São João festival celebrated with more passion than in Porto, where the streets are overtaken with dancing and flying vegetables. The party begins on 23 June and ends on the 24th. By the evening of 23 June every part of Porto is celebrating - drinking, eating grilled sardines, hurling vegetables at each other, leaping over bonfires whilst making a wish, waving garlic under each other's noses and banging plastic hammers on tables along to the music. The origin of these strange customs has been forgotten but the tradition still persists. The best place to go is the historic centre and particularly the Ribeira, along the river Douro.