Two border towns—Alcoutim, Portugal and Sanlúcar de Guadiana, Spain—are getting ready for an annual festival that brings local residents together to celebrate their illegal past
The Smuggling Festival, or Festval do Contrabando, to take place April 4-6, has been held since 2017, and helps keep alive more difficult times in the towns’ history, when smuggling was a way of life, often the only one possible, for residents of the two towns, well into the 1940s.
A variety of cultural and historic events will be included, including period-styled markets in the streets of the two towns that face each other across the Guadiana river. The highlight of the events is a temporary floating bridge that allows residents and visitors to cross the river easily where smugglers once plied with small boats.
