You’ll hear much about Loulé having the oldest carnaval in the Algarve, in fact I even said that myself in Monday’s carnaval post. However I have discovered today that in fact Moncarapacho has the oldest carnaval. dating back 119 years.

Originally everyone walked, then there were mules and in 1913 the first motorised vehicle appeared. Now of course it is a combination of floats pulled by tractors and revellers on foot. There were apparently 15 floats today and around 500 participants, quite extraordinary for a small town of around 5,000 residents.

Now you also follow Restless Jo you may remember her mentioning the Moncarapacho carnaval last year. We were far more fortunate than Jo though as she had rain, and as you can see we had brilliant sunshine. There was a cold wind though, which both we and the participants noticed!

By the way did anyone spot and…