Salt and Arts Nativity Scene

The traditional Salt and Arts Nativity Scene combines the municipality’s ‘white gold’ with some handcrafted elements from the traditions and interior of the territory’s mountains, such as wicker and cane, using the ancestral wisdom passed down by the local people.

The 35-metre-long nativity scene contains 12 tonnes of salt, four of which were reused from the previous year, and around a thousand figures, along with several pieces of cane made and crafted by local artisans from Junqueira, with the mastery of an art that has always given life and shape to objects with the most diverse uses, playing an important role in their function of packaging, transporting goods, agriculture, fishing, salt farming and domestic activities.

The promotion of salt and ancestral arts is fundamental to the reaffirmation of the intangible heritage of the municipality of Castro Marim, and to its continuity with a focus on originality and the constant evolution and adaptation of traditional materials and techniques to the present day.