One Portuguese beach dips its children in the sea three times every 24 August
The São Bartolomeu do Mar pilgrimage runs 20 to 24 August in Esposende, with Quim Barreiros opening and Tony Carreira closing. The holy bath, on the morning of the 24th, exists nowhere else.
Portugal has pilgrimages with bigger line-ups and pilgrimages with bigger crowds. It has no other one where children under seven are carried into the sea and dipped three times in a row.
It is called the banho santo, the holy bath. It happens on the morning of 24 August, St Bartholomew’s day, and it is why this stretch of Esposende coast turns up in ethnography books that have never heard of a summer festival. The old belief held that the dip protected children from fear and nervous illness. Families come now for the tradition, for the photograph, and because grandad went too.
Dates and who is playing
The pilgrimage runs from 20 to 24 August. Quim Barreiros opens on the 20th, 4 Mens play on the 22nd, and Tony Carreira closes on the 24th, which is also the big day.
The bill has no pretensions and works precisely because of that: Portuguese popular music, on the shore, in a place where half the crowd knows the other half by name. Anyone expecting a Minho edition of a city festival will leave disappointed. Anyone who wants to see a real romaria will stay late.
Making a weekend of it
August is busy along this coast and the two events pair well. The Senhora da Guia festival in Apúlia runs 5 to 16 August, a few kilometres down the road, with the candle procession as its high point — anyone staying in the area catches both without trying.
The full programme, with times for the religious ceremonies, the concerts and the bath itself, goes up on the municipal festivals and pilgrimages portal. Check there in the days beforehand, because the morning ceremony times can still be adjusted.
Image: Afsalgado / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
