Four ways to spend the first St Martin's weekend: the 50th National Horse Fair opens in Golegã, Arruda dos Vinhos gathers 13 local wineries at its free wine festival, LEFFEST turns 20 with four opening films on one night, and Portimão opens its 363rd St Martin's Fair.

When

6 November 2026

Where

Golegã, Arruda dos Vinhos, Lisbon and Portimão

By Leonor Sampaio

Image: Waugsberg / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Santa Maria da Feira's Christmas theme park runs from 28 November to 30 December, 13:30 to 19:00, but closes on 12 of those days. A day ticket is 9 euros for adults and 7.50 for children and over-65s, an all-season pass 16.50, and the Circo Evolution is back for a fifth year.

Perlim, the Christmas theme park in Santa Maria da Feira, is back from 28 November to 30 December. The calendar is a little misleading, though: the park is shut on 12 of those days, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day among them. That leaves 21 open days, always from 13:30 to 19:00. The closed days are listed on the official day-ticket sales page: Monday 30 November, and 2, 3, 4, 9, 10, 14, 15, 16, 17, 24 and 25 December. Every weekend is open, as are the…

Lisbon's Alkantara Festival runs from 13 to 29 November at venues including the D. Maria II national theatre, Culturgest, CCB and CAM Gulbenkian. It opens with Cão Solteiro's farewell piece. Tickets are sold by each venue; workshops are free with registration.

For seventeen days, from 13 to 29 November, the Alkantara Festival takes over a good chunk of Lisbon. Dance, theatre and performance fill venues from the D. Maria II national theatre to Culturgest, the CCB and the CAM Gulbenkian, by way of MAAT, the MNAC and Teatro do Bairro Alto. The full day-by-day schedule, with times, is on the Alkantara Festival website. The first night belongs to Cão Solteiro. The Lisbon company and filmmaker André Godinho present a…

Guimarães Jazz runs 12 to 21 November at Centro Cultural Vila Flor: Toninho Horta with the Guimarães Orchestra opens, ARTEMIS, Kurt Rosenwinkel and Peter Evans fill the middle, and Kurt Elling sings with North Macedonia's National Jazz Orchestra on the last night. Tickets €10 to €20, with bundles up to 30% off.

Guimarães Jazz reaches its 35th edition in the shape regulars know well: two back-to-back weeks in November, nearly everything at Centro Cultural Vila Flor, and a bill that puts big American names next to Portugal's own jazz schools. This year it runs from 12 to 21 November, with 12 concerts plus late-night jam sessions and workshops. It opens on Thursday 12 with Brazilian guitarist Toninho Horta and his quartet alongside the Guimarães Orchestra, at…

The Greatest Show on Earth tour comes to Benfica's stadium on Thursday 27 May 2027, with Wolf Alice opening. Live Nation's presale starts on 5 November at 10am Lisbon time and general sale the next day at the same hour. Prices have not been announced.

U2 are coming to Estádio da Luz in Lisbon on Thursday 27 May 2027. It is the Portuguese stop on The Greatest Show on Earth, the band's first stadium tour since 2019, and Wolf Alice are the support act. If you want to be there, the dates that matter are this week. According to Live Nation's official event page, the presale opens on Thursday 5 November at 10am, with the waiting room live from 9.30am. You need to register on that page beforehand to get in.…

The Christmas village inside Óbidos's medieval walls runs from 27 November to 3 January under the theme Pinocchio and the world of puppets. Adults €12, children €8, family tickets from €36, with timed entry and limited capacity.

Óbidos Vila Natal, the Christmas village inside the walls of Óbidos, opens on 27 November and runs until 3 January. This year's story is Pinocchio. The official theme is "Pinocchio and the world of puppets", and the site map shows how literally they have taken it: there is a Geppetto's Neighbourhood, a Master's Workshop, a Great Fish, a Pinocchio's Plunge, the Lame Fox and Blind Cat's Lair and a puppet theatre. There is also something called the Liar…

The 13th Porto/Post/Doc runs from 19 to 28 November across eight venues in Porto and Matosinhos. It closes a three-year programme on migration, with focuses on Alain Gomis and Jan Ijäs, films on Elza Soares and João Aguardela, Porto on screen from 1931 to 2025, and passes from €40.

Porto/Post/Doc takes over the city's screens again from 19 to 28 November, and the 13th edition has its programme out. That is ten days of what the festival calls cinema of the real (documentary bleeding into fiction, essay film and music) across eight venues in Porto and Matosinhos. The core strand is "In the Land of Others", the third and final chapter of a trilogy the festival began in 2024 with "The Movement of Peoples". After two years on journeys…

The 363rd Feira de São Martinho fills Portimão's fairground from 6 to 15 November, free to enter, with rides, roast chestnuts, farturas and grilled octopus. 11 November is Youth Day and 15 November Family Day, both with special prices at participating stalls.

Plenty of Portuguese fairs claim tradition. Portimão's can date it: 1662. The Feira de São Martinho is back at the city's fairground from 6 to 15 November for its 363rd edition, with the usual line-up of roast chestnuts, farturas, chouriço bread, grilled octopus and fairground rides running until one in the morning. Entry is free. Portimão council describes it as the city's oldest popular event, and it always straddles 11 November, St Martin's Day.

Trancoso holds its 13th chestnut fair from 30 October to 1 November, Góis pairs honey, chestnuts and soup over the weekend, Chaves fills its streets with more than 500 stalls, José González opens Misty Fest in Lisbon and Saturday is Halloween. Friday's CP rail strike has been called off.

This is magusto weekend. All Saints' Day falls on a Sunday, Halloween on the Saturday, and half the country lights a bonfire to roast chestnuts. Here are five plans, from the hills of the Beira Alta to a seated hall in Lisbon. First, some good news if you are travelling on Friday. The CP strike by conductors and ticket staff planned for the 30th has been called off after the union met the infrastructure ministry, so trains should run as normal. We have…

The Portuguese MotoGP Grand Prix runs from 20 to 22 November at the Algarve International Circuit. It is the second-to-last round of the season. Only three-day tickets are sold and children under three are not admitted.

MotoGP is back in the Algarve in three weeks. The Portuguese Grand Prix runs from 20 to 22 November at the Algarve International Circuit near Portimão, and this year it could matter a great deal. Portimão is the second-to-last round, with only Valencia after it. With the Australian race washed out, Marc Márquez moved to the top of the standings on 365 points, ten clear of Jorge Martín, who broke his right arm in his sprint crash. Malaysia (30 October to 1…

Chaves hosts the Feira dos Santos from 30 October to 1 November: more than 500 exhibitors and traders, a livestock fair and cattle contests on Saturday, octopus by the São Neutel fort, concerts on Largo General Silveira and the saints' parade on Sunday.

Over the All Saints' weekend, Chaves turns into one of the biggest street fairs in Portugal. The Feira dos Santos 2026 runs from Friday 30 October to Sunday 1 November, with more than 500 exhibitors and traders spread across the town centre in the far north of Trás-os-Montes. It is a fair with centuries behind it, and it still does a bit of everything: crafts, regional produce, tractors, cars, livestock and plenty of music. Things get going at 10:30 with…

The festival's 17th edition opens at the Coliseu dos Recreios on 1 November and closes at Casa da Música on the 29th: 22 nights in Lisbon, 11 in Porto, one in Loulé and one in Coimbra. Al Di Meola alone plays six times.

Misty Fest takes the whole month again. The 17th edition of promoter Uguru's autumn festival has 35 shows booked between 1 and 29 November, according to the official programme on the festival's site, and the split by city tells you what kind of festival it is: 22 in Lisbon, 11 in Porto, one in Loulé and one in Coimbra. No fields, no wristbands. These are seated rooms, from the Coliseu to Casa da Música. José González, the Swedish songwriter of quiet voice…

Paulo Branco's Lisbon film festival runs from 6 to 15 November across five screens. James Gray, Martin McDonagh, Cristian Mungiu and Lee Chang-dong open it, 11 films compete, and Lars von Trier gets a complete retrospective.

The man handing out LEFFEST's top prize this year is David Cronenberg. The director of The Fly and Crash chairs the jury at the festival's 20th edition, which runs from 6 to 15 November at São Jorge, Nimas, Culturgest, Teatro do Bairro and, for the first time, the NOS cinema at Vasco da Gama in Parque das Nações. Friday 6 November starts on four screens at once. São Jorge hosts the opening ceremony with James Gray's Paper Tiger. Culturgest kicks off with…

A giant bouncy-castle weekend at Portimão Arena, a night-time mystery hunt at the Benfica Museum, a spooky reading with live music at Évora's Paço de São Miguel, story sessions in Coimbra, a library night in Braga and a party in Albufeira. Times, prices and booking.

Halloween falls on a Saturday this year, and the Sunday after it is 1 November, All Saints' Day. That is a whole weekend for costumes, pumpkins and carefully managed frights. Here are six plans built for children, from the Minho down to the Algarve. Almost all of them need booking, so sort it this week. The Biblioteca Lúcio Craveiro da Silva stays open late on the 31st, from 9pm to 11.30pm, for children aged 5 to 10. It costs €8 per person and you have to…

The Feira Nacional do Cavalo in Golegã reaches its 50th edition under a new name, Caixa Golegã Feira Nacional do Cavalo, from 6 to 15 November, alongside the 27th International Lusitano Horse Fair and the São Martinho fair. The pilgrims' procession is on 11 November.

Golegã fills up with horses, wide-brimmed hats and the smell of roasting chestnuts from 6 to 15 November. It's the 50th Feira Nacional do Cavalo, Portugal's national horse fair, and it arrives with a new name: Caixa Golegã Feira Nacional do Cavalo, after a partnership with state bank Caixa Geral de Depósitos, which turns 150 this year. Running at the same time are the 27th International Lusitano Horse Fair and the São Martinho fair, which is where it all…