Festas dos Santos - as Arraiais 2026

 

 I hope you are all having a pleasant and beautiful beginning of summer.

I would like to start my post with "Arraial" which gives Lisbon a festival atmosphere in June 😊 While Portugal celebrates the popular Saints, Lisbon celebrates "Santo António" with festivals. It is possible to find free events, street parties, theaters and many other events that you will love. Families with children can also find a variety of activities, and sometimes you may even come across open-air cinemas.

It is possible to find a list of "Arraiais" or local festivals on their websites before June.  The streets are decorated with flags, lights and all sorts of decorations, and everywhere you can find street food trucks serving traditionally Portuguese street food. Here "Lisboa Secreto" have shared a list fort he last year. On different days this year I went to "Misericórdia" in Bairro Alto, "São Miguel" in Alfama, the little Arraial around Santa Catarina Church and the festival/stage in Benfica. Today I wanted to tell you a bit about them.

The first one I went to was the festival around the church of Santa Catarina. With the invitation of a few friends from the crew I play beach volleyball with on Saturdays, I found myself there during the week. With a buffet and a small stage, we were aiming to sit, eat street food and dance. However, the rain spoiled our pleasure a bit. No matter, we still stuck to our intentions 😊 I think I tasted snails  here for the first time in my life. Someone ordered snails for the table. The tiny little snails were boiled and flavored and served in a shell. I tasted "Caracóis" by holding it with a toothpick and with the excitement of tasting it for the first time, I can say that we had fun with Brazilian music afterwards. You can see the happiness in the photo where I took a selfie by taking a sardine hat from someone 😊

On the evening of June 12th, which is celebrated as "St. Anthony" - please correct me if I'm wrong - we went out to celebrate my friend's birthday at a bar in Bairro Alto instead of hitting the streets. After not finding anything worth mentioning as it was a classic Lisbon night of fun, I remembered that we couldn't find any transportation back and wanted to add it as a note. Living close to the city can be advantageous in this case.

Another Saturday night I went with a friend to the festival in Alfamada. It was really crowded, like a needle in a haystack. It was a pleasure to walk the streets with the music and sangria in your hand.  Finally we stopped and ate chouriço on the grill with bread and toothpicks. The pleasure of chouriço on the grill is different. While people were going crazy on the streets with the music playing, we finally decided to escape away from the flood of people.

 

Than that year back, we decided to go to the Pride party as 2 Turks and 2 Portuguese. Here again, in addition to the food trucks, there were a crazy number of cocktail bars, various drinks and stands reminding Pride. On the big stage set up in "Praça do Comércio", the big area of Lisbon, DJs were performing and we danced and ate and drank until 9 pm. At this point, I would like to remind you that Lisbon / Portugal's approach to the LGBT community is positive. 

 

Afterwards we headed to the car to go to the Gipsy Kings concert. Of course, after we couldn't find a place, we parked the car in the garage of my friend whose house is in the same neighborhood and took an uber to the Benfica stage. Since this was also a festival area, I ate a Bifana this time for my stomach that was ringing hunger bells again. After a long wait at night, Gipsy Kings finally took the stage around 11.30 pm! The area was very crowded.  I was happy that I remembered most of their songs as they played them. We danced a lot and got cold. Of course, they left the songs "Bamboléo" and "Volare" for last and made the audience go crazy! 😊

June has been a pleasant month, I think July might be a bit calmer. I will continue to share some information here.

 

If you are thinking of coming to Lisbon in summer, you can choose June, if you are going to spend a vacation just staying in Lisbon, you can find entertainment somewhere every evening. Unfortunately, I cannot comment on hotel and flight tickets.  Keep in mind that some instagram pages share information about the festival venues in June.

 

By the way, a small note for those of you who are thinking of visiting to Lisbon for a  short vacation stay 

Recently, while I was going through a bit of a housing chaos myself (yes… Lisbon is not always easy 😅), I came across a place very close to Anjos metro. It has this old Portuguese, boutique, slightly vintage apart-hotel vibe. Rooms are separate like a hotel, and there’s a shared kitchen and bathrooms on each floor.

I found myself  meeting with the owner, is Portuguese,  I can say it felt like a relief to meet someone reliable 🙏 

If any of you are interested summer short stays, you can message me and I can connect you with him.

Just wanted to leave this here, because I know how stressful finding a place in Lisbon can be 😌

Just a small note: it’s more suitable for people who are okay with shared spaces 😊

I would like to share with you the Portuguese street food to be eaten at the festival and its content.

Bifana - Pork fillet, barbecued

Prego - Red meat, barbecued

Salgadaos - various snacks, usually fried, cod fish cakes, croquettes with chicken or vegetables, and many other similar products

Pão com chouriço - pork sausage, similar in name to Turkish sucuk but in a different flavor. It is usually smoked, fully cooked and ready to eat. A little different from Spanish chorizo. It is served with small pieces of bread.

Caracóis - You know snails, I think they boil them, they are served on a plate and you eat them with a toothpick.

Sardines - Sardine fish. I didn't like the way this was served. You get one fish on a slice of bread. You have to pick out the bones and head and eat it, but the taste is quite good.

Cachorro - This is actually a hot dog, it has several names. You know it as a hot dog, and the bread is really delicious. Portugal seems to know the bread business 😊

Desserts - You can usually find pasteis de nata, Bola de Berlim, Queijada (the best one is in Sintra), etc. while walking through the festival at night.

These are the ones I have identified in general, of course there are many more street delicacies. See you at the next event and have a joyful, peaceful and perfect summer 😊

Confirm dates here