Seven days of São Bartolomeu in Ponte da Barca, and one night when 80-plus rusgas take the street
The official programme is out: horse racing on the 19th, a free D.A.M.A concert on the 20th, sung duels on the 22nd and, on 23 August as always, the rusgas night that made this Minho town's name.
Ponte da Barca does not get much sleep between 18 and 24 August. The Romaria de São Bartolomeu opens on the Tuesday and closes on the Monday night, and the official programme sets out what that means: seven themed days, nothing to pay, and one night the town measures its year by.
That night is the 23rd. It always is.
The rusgas night, 23 August
A rusga is a neighbourhood group that walks the streets playing and singing, and Ponte da Barca calls itself the capital of them. The claim holds up. The tradition is more than a century old and draws over 80 rusgas from across Portugal, each one collecting a credential at the São Bartolomeu chapel, working through a fixed route past the town hall, the Jardim dos Poetas and the food stalls on Praça Fernão de Magalhães, and finishing on the stage in Praça da República with three minutes to win over a jury.
In between, circles form wherever there is room. Concertinas, bass drums, cavaquinhos. People dance the vira and trade improvised verses in the middle of the road, which is where all of this started, long before anyone built a stage.
Fireworks over the River Lima follow at 11.45pm — the fogo do ar, the fire of the air. Its counterpart, the fogo da água, closes the whole romaria the following night between the medieval bridge and the Bar do Rio. Two different displays, and the town will correct you if you mix them up.
The rest of the week
Wednesday the 19th belongs to folk dancing, and it opens at 4pm with trotting and galloping races at the municipal racecourse in Vila Nova de Muía for the Grande Prémio de Portugal. At 7pm the Single Men play the Married Men at the municipal stadium, a fixture nobody keeps the score of and everybody attends.
Thursday the 20th is municipality and diaspora day, with a melon competition and a regional wine tasting at 6pm, then D.A.M.A on the Praça Terras da Nóbrega stage at 11pm, free.
Friday is radio day, with a bicycle gymkhana in the morning and a game of malha in the afternoon. Saturday the 22nd holds the cantares ao desafio at 10pm — ten singers in pairs, six musicians, verses invented on the spot — after the Ribeira Lima parade at 5.30pm.
Monday the 24th is the saint’s own day: brass bands arriving at 2.30pm, mass, sermon and procession at 5.30pm, a folk festival at night.
If you would rather have your São Bartolomeu by the sea, Esposende holds its own from 20 to 24 August, holy bath and all. And if sand appeals more than concertinas, Sol da Caparica starts this Thursday.
Photo: Associação Concelhia das Festas de São Bartolomeu
