The Algarvian crafts is rich in beauty, creativity and imagination, and they are beautiful memories with an artistic and emotional value. Throughout the Algarve, there are many stores that sell these little relics, or even in the street stalls, accompanying lively nights that also sell these parts, as worked tiles, thumbnails of Algarvian houses and chimneys; worked copper casseroles; rag or jute dolls; baskets and hats empreita; bobbin lace or crocheted; ballon, often decorated; wooden utensils and furniture, especially banks in cross Monchique, oldest nature, since more recent pieces are paper flowers, dried fig chickens, materials that come from the sea, as paperweights, necklaces, bracelets and earrings or small tables and umbrellas jewelry. Are also great souvenir options examples of regional cuisine as liqueurs, wines, sausages, jams and essential sweet almond and fig. For those looking for the real market experience, the Algarve offers a variety of fresh markets, which have been recovering their role, joining the old pleasure of going to seek to purchase the freshest food, with modern consumer habits, where to go shopping involves walking, looking at the shop windows and have a meal.

In this sense, we highlight the Faro markets, Loulé, Olhão, Portimão and Lagos, all fully modern with its own characteristics that offer an ancestral experience in a modern time. Already those who prefer to shop at fairs, where modest stalls, modern awnings, straw carrycot with harvested vegetables and fruits at dawn, these periodic fairs also appeal to the sense of nostalgia in the middle of cities, villages and towns, keeping the tradition alive, another record, fairs flea meet the meeting between the old value with the ancestral appreciation, in which the exhibits are valued for their age and history. For those who prefer something more modern, commercial centers make available all that is necessary, so the Algarve followed the trend and offers various facilities such as the Algarve Shopping, the biggest of all, in Albufeira, it is surface offers more than 150 shops from the supermarket to the cinema and bowling; Faro is the Algarve Forum and a different concept is the Quinta Shopping in Quinta do Lago Resort, this are cosmopolitan shops, luxurious, sophisticated cuisine restaurants and to accompany the night, is a typical English pub.

In Tavira, the craft is a fluent activity in the Serra do Caldeirão, where most productions remain rooted in tradition, although some products have changed function and have found new ways. These traditional activities are weaving, basketry, embroidery and lace, tiles, brick ass and traditional tiles. One of the productions with a great economic value in the past is undoubtedly the weaving, which has taken on a particular importance in the northeast Algarve. A predominantly female activity, where men ensure some additional stages in the treatment of wool or linen. The new workshops created by younger weavers stimulate the creation of new products and models for municipal consumers. Although still find fine examples of blankets, saddlebags and traditional towels, it is increasingly difficult to find linen and handmade sheep’s wool, in which fiadeiras scarce and carders almost disappeared.

Basketry, specifically sugarcane, represented another widespread activity, since the baskets were important instruments of labor in agricultural tasks and the storage and transportation of products. However, there is much that there is the use of plant fibers such as esparto, pita and palm. Very close to this activity is the art of producing taboos chairs or brooms that still remain. Alongside this activity, the women of Sierra devoted themselves to embroidery and lace, embellishing sheets and face towels in linen, with Lérias, bobbin lace the, open sheaths, the plaited fringes, the cross stitch, embroidery hue, it comes down to a world of female secrets of complicities. However, there arises an innovative production making use of jute as a raw material base, in which some parts are lush but have a careful characterization and design of a large force. These days, this feminine craft work has been to develop small business, created through professional training courses, in which many of them are organized under the Cultural Heritage Conservation Program.

In the process of disappearance are the saddlers or tinkerers, ancient crafts learned from a master and had the advantage of developing inside the house, where the master taught the essentials of the profession, while the rest of the year took care of other jobs.

Reference is tile production activity, donkey bricks and handcrafted tiles, traditional in the town of Santa Catarina da Fonte do Bispo. Already building ceramics had a thriving past, but with the demand for traditional materials of ecological virtues and undeniable aesthetic value were abras growth of ports and expansion for this sector of activity. The pieces buckwheat time were made of clay mined at the place of production and confection remains essentially manual although some of the sheds have already adopted industrialized manufacturing processes.

In Loulé, the craft is as a link to the past, the customs, the traditions of a people with a well-defined culture. Are the craft traditions that keep alive the memory and culture, and can be found pieces of various materials, manufactured with techniques and ancestral knowledge that pass from generation to generation in particular palm craft is manufactured throughout the Loulé municipality; pieces of clay that are found in Almancil Four Roads; copper, tin and harness in Loulé, rag dolls and basketry in Querença, Esparto and wooden toys in Alte, palm work in Salir. Activities done in day-to-day were reshaped and today are sold for different uses, depicting the memory of a people.

In Aljezur, work with clay is a traditional activity in growth, highlighting the artisans who produce work with great quality. Adding to this, the trapologia jobs such as blankets, carpets and rags bags; rents; basketry; the wickerwork; wood and brass. For years they were developed and implemented wooden chairs topped in “taboo” or buinho and wooden spoons used in all the houses in this region.

In Alcoutim, manual labor or production artisan is expressed by ancestral knowledge applied to objects constructed and demonstrates the culture of a people. To see the crafts of a region is to recognize your past, live the traditions and custom and simply respect their ancestral values. Although some craft activities are disappearing, Alcoutim still confeciona traditional pieces of wool and linen, such as blankets and saddlebags; embroidery and lace; Arraiolos tapestry type and they keep alive other traditional activities such as basketry cane and wicker, pottery, the forging blacksmith or shoemaker. In this region developed a type of latest craft, resulting from the adoption of capacity, adaptation and innovation of craft techniques, in particular by promoting the jute dolls (Needle Flower Shop), typical figures of the region and of corn straw flowers (great fight Low), as the various pieces of clay (Martinlongo and Cortes Pereiras).

In Monchique, footwear manufacturing was male occupation, which trababalhavam essentially work or to ask for the shopping in the area, with an activity that persists over time and remains active. With regard to carpentry work, a legacy left by the Romans are the scissors chairs, a piece of unique handicrafts, which still maintain a secular model, artisans have been changing over the years to become more comfortable and may have all shapes and sizes. The more fiber used in basketry is clearly the wicker, but the lintel has also been sought after due to its resistance. Once the wicker was abundant in the rivers which was serving for the manufacture of baskets, baskets and chairs, while the lintel was used to create saiceiros. Today there are still some followers of this art, keeping alive the tradition and the memory of those who worked with these fibers. Another material that is once intentionally cultivated in this region, flax was used in the famous Mataporcas factory for tecelegem on home looms, an ancient art that has always been women. Currently, still dedicated to this art, people still struggle for this activity does not die, developing lace, embroidery and various knitwear; still makes weaving rags (trapologia), performed on homemade looms if concocting, blankets, carpets and other parts. Already pottery still persists in this region, it is possible to manufacture, clay preparation, cooking and painting pieces, a craft that has the creativity of each craftsman. Currently, craft trends passes by flower arrangements and dried branches, paintings executed in fabric and sculptures from tree branches.

When speaking of the lagoon craft, one is to speak directly ceramics, whose skilled hands transform clay into beautiful pieces, attractive for its shape and color, which alone represent a legacy of the past. Since the construction of miniatures of typical Algarvian carts and gaudy fishing boats, tasteful empreita jobs are some of the examples of craft work Lagoon, being highlighted by the precision and preparation technique, however, this perfection also provided in the embroideries linen, paintings on fabrics in the work done in wrought iron, and in several decorative pieces made with shells. With FATACIL, Lagoa has all its ancestral techniques to thousands of visitors.

In São Brás de Alportel, during the winter evenings by the fireplace or in the summer afternoons, in the doorway, the art of traditional business was passed from generation to generation and resisted during the times, though few keep this knowledge as work in esparto in undersell Site, artisanal production of bricks, tiles and typical donkey bricks in the Valley of Mealhas and Bengado, the chairs of “atabua” in Alportel, palm brooms, the mats and baskets the empreita works in S. Romao, toys in wood and lace and trapologia in the village. The empreita is the art of working palm leaves, turning into objects such as baskets, bags, mats, carpets, a set of utensils that were used either to support the work in the field, either as household items. Already the wicker, the atabua, which grows along the rivers, is used to make the seat of traditional chairs, as Esparto is essential material for the production of useful parts in everyday life. Men prefer roofers activities, made of clay works, the brickmaker profession was common, but with the passage of time was up losing and recently the traditional brick “dumb ” and the tile” cotto ” gained importance since constitute beautiful objects for the walls and floor decoration.