Castelo Novo: how to celebrate an Interplanetary Battle

Placed at beautiful Portuguese inland, Castelo Novo village will recreate a national version on Star Wars. 

The Historical Village of Castelo Novo brings an unusual party between July 27 and 29: in a country where folk stories includes, almost always, Enchanted Moorish girls, ladies whose dress length hides not feet but goats' hooves, or princes who fall in love with the shepherds, this party in Castelo Novo tells us of a battle waged in the skies over Serra da Gardunha, between extra-terrestrial beings, and of mysterious lights that move in the atmosphere at impossible speeds.

This extraordinary and legendary events set the tone for a different party to take place between 27 and 29 July in one of the 12 villages that make up the Historical Villages network.

Castelo Novo is about 2 and half hours from both Lisbon and Porto, in the beautiful interior of the Beira Baixa, a forgotten land, and because forgotten, still remaining beautiful and intact.

The festival is called "The Great Battle of Gardunha" and its theme is supernatural events, rooted in the popular imagination of the inhabitants of the Serra da Gardunha. Gardunha is one of the most important geographical elevations of Portugal, a unique place, wrapped in mysticism and stage of mysterious phenomena that feed the local legends.

Reports of sightings of celestial objects are common in the historic village of Castelo Novo and in neighbouring villages, also one of the favorite places of UFO experts for their investigations. Stories with mysterious lights that appear in the sky, moving at great speed, humanoids and flying objects are part of the testimonies of people who inhabit and inhabited the villages of Gardunha, feeding for centuries the idea that this is a zone visited by extra-terrestrial beings and that will be, even, stage of battles of flying objects. Still frequent today, are expeditions to Penha to observe these unusual phenomena.

These popular accounts are the inspiration for "The Great Battle of Gardunha". But will the Battle really happen? Will the enemy really appear? Does it really exist? To know it all, come to Castelo Novo between the 27th and 29th of July to discover for yourself.

 

The initiatives are many, but we highlight our favorites: at 10:00 p.m. on the 27th there is a concert in the Igreja Matriz de Castelo Novo, with Amor Fati: The Love of One's Fate, withEvmorfia Metaxaki, a Greek soprano and Helena Raposo playing the baroque guitar, the theorbo and lute.

At 11:00 a.m. on Saturday 28th, there is an archaeological visit to the Ervedal Ancient Roman Wellsprings, guided by members of the José Alves Monteiro Municipal Archaeological Museum, and at 1:00 p.m. at Casa de Cima Gardens, a countryside lunch. Still on Saturday you can by trusting, at the Bioeco Market, in Largo do Pelourinho, where you will find several local agricultural products. At 6:30 p.m. you can learn how to bake rural bread in the village's communal oven, and at 10:00 p.m., the "Great Battle of Gardunha" begins, operated by the Community Theater and staged by Nuno Pino Custódio, based on the popular imagery of Castelo Novo.

 

On Sunday 29th, at 10:00 a.m. you can learn how to make cheese in a traditional way, and at 11:00 a.m. there is music, conversation and breakfast around Viola Beiroa, a traditional local instrument with the researcher, teacher, composer and musician Miguel Carvalhinho.

To close with a golden key, there is a must seen on Igreja Matriz, at 6:00 pm, a solo recital with Portuguese Citer, from the 16th to the 20th century, by the excelent Pedro Caldeira Cabral.

 

This is another initiative of the Historical Villages of Portugal and of the Municipality of Fundão, supported by the Centro 2020, Portugal 2020 and the Regional Development Fund.

 

To know more about the event and about special accommodation packages click here.

 

Pictures courtesy from Aldeias Históricas de Portugal.