Harvesting fruit and sampling chestnuts

Every summer, the country people of the Barrocal lands and mountains pick almonds, figs and carobs.  Later in the year, autumn is the season for chestnuts and magustos in which people drink água-pé (watered grape brandy) or must.

The carob trees are laden with fruit and perfume the air with their sweet fragrance.  In the orchards, people shake the branches with long rods for the fruit to fall, while on the ground, they are collected in jute baskets to be later stored in big burlap sacks.

The height of the almond harvest is in September.  After being shelled, they are put to dry on roof terraces along with the figs, and later, stored in baskets scented with fennel.

At the height of autumn, the end of the harvesting period is celebrated with traditional magustos, during which people eat chestnuts and try the new wine.  The magustos mark the end of the annual farming cycle involving the land, fruit, farmers who sow and harvest crops, and all the practices, functions and customs associated with rural life.  These are the customs that the Algarvian people like sharing with visitors.