Paderne Medieval Festival is the place to be at the end of each year. If you are in the Algarve, make sure to plan for a couple of hours at the medieval. It is not that big as a lot of the other Medieval festivals are. But at the same time, it is super cozy and a lovely place to be for a low fee. 

Paderne Medieval Festival

This is part of the Albufeiras New Year celebration and it is a really nice one. The entrance fee is just 2 euros and it is well-spent money. The medieval festival goes on for four days each year – from 29 of December to 1:st of January. They have a program that you get and then you can plan your day according to what you want to see.

There are different performances and the city of Paderne is transformed into a real medieval town. People that walk around are dressed accordingly and a lot of the things that you can buy here are things that people had and ate during medieval times.

Let yourself go back to the medieval times

Parades, shows, belly dancers and sword fights – you can find everything here. I have always told Mini that I wanted to visit the Medieval festival in Visby, Sweden. So far there has not been enough time for us to make it so this was a great substitute for that. Here you can stock up on your souvenirs because they are all over the place.

When you live full time in a motorhome, there is no room for you to buy lots of stuff – I have to make do with photographs of the things I like. And thank good that I am not that into “knickknacks” because then Mini would have to take thousands of pictures.

Eating through time at the Paderne Medieval Festival

The smell of the food is really amazing and it was one of the highlights of our visit here. Roasted pig, skewer and lots of super nice smelly food. We were here with our friends Yvonne and Lorenz and he had never had Kebab before. Yes, that’s true – he had never had Kebab. So it was an easy pick for us to get Kebab. If you are vegetarian, I think that you might leave here hungry because there were not many (if any) alternativs that were without meat.

The Paderne Medieval Festival is not that big and you can easily walk around it within an hour. The thing about the fair is that you want to see the different performances. Suddenly there might be a band, marching through town and around the next corner, there might be a joggler.

A tip: If you own clothes that are fit for a medieval festival, put them on! The experience of walking around here will be more hyped. And if you want you can also buy some props here.

Our visit to the Paderne Medieval Festival

We spent a couple of hours, walking around and just enjoying all the things here. It was funny to see how the medieval times were mixed together with our modern times – like a man sitting on a bench, dressed like he is from the medieval times but with a new phone in his hands.

My favorite part was by far the donkey rides. Ok, so I didn’t ride because the donkeys were small. But I did get in touch with Donkey Tours Algarve and January first, we got to share an experience of a lifetime – but that is for another article.

You might want to stay at the Motorhome Friends while visiting the Paderne Medieval Festival.

Information about Paderne Medieval Festival

Address: Paderne, Algarve, Portugal.
When: 29:th of December until January 1:st.
Entrance fee: 2 euros per person.