In Campo Maior you can witness one of the rarest traditions in Portugal right now. During the Festas do Povo the whole town decorates itself: every street is covered by hand with paper flowers, hundreds of thousands of them, folded over months by the people who live on that street. The design is kept secret until the night before the festival opens, so nobody sees a street until it is finished.
The festival has no fixed date. It happens when the people of Campo Maior decide it happens, and the last edition was eleven years ago. That is exactly why UNESCO inscribed it on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2021, as the community festivities in Campo Maior. This is a living tradition run by the town itself, not a scheduled event on a tourist calendar.
Here is Rua Capitão Manuel António Vieira during the Festas do Povo 2026, with the street still empty and the canopy running its full length, the pink deepening overhead and washing out to white where it meets the far end. Campo Maior sits in the Alentejo, a short drive from Elvas and its fortifications.
Campo Maior is a short drive north-east of Elvas, the fortress town on the Spanish border.
