Culture in the Algarve

Portugal is a country with a rich culture, but you will find out that each region has its own particularities. This is certainly the case with the Algarve, where you can see people’s way of living through their arts and music and confirm how different they are from other Portuguese regions.
Nowadays, one can still see the Moorish influences and the legacy of five centuries of Arab rule. Just look for the narrow streets and chimneys with the most varied shapes and designs.
Also not to be missed are the flat baskets made of palm tree leafs, the ceramics, the typical hampers and the many churches and castles built in previous centuries. The local culture and many of its representing works are preserved in museums in the major coastal centres and in smaller inland towns.
Music and dance are the cultural expressions that best reflect the soul of a people.
In the Algarve the tourist flag is the “Corridinho” a cheerful version of folklore that, according to several testimonies, was born from the polka and from the mazurka. With the introduction of the accordion to these saloon dances on the end of the 19th century, players invented and reinvented the songs until the “corridinho” was born.