The popular will see Lagos turn back the clock to the sixteenth century and celebrating King Sebastião during the festival.

This is the seventh edition of the festival and this year the theme will be surrounding King Sebastião from Lagos to Alcácer Quibir with events planned to show this period of Portuguese history and the remarkable role of the King at this time which saw great developments and discoveries on social, cultural and economic levels in the Algarve and the country as a whole.

The king ruled in Portugal between 1573 and 1578 and during the festival there will be battle reenactments as well as other events to bring this period of history alive for visitors to the festival.

Most of the events in the festival will be held in the Praça do Infante/Jardim da Constituição and are set to include parades, reenactments and lots of entertainment reflecting this period in history with hundreds of volunteers dressing up and heading for Lagos to make the event a success.

Many of the volunteers will be from local schools and other institutions in the Lagos area with all working to create an authentic experience and portraying everyone from members of the clergy and nobility to everyday people from the time.

The festival will also be including a gastronomic element in partnership with restaurants in Lagos with special dishes being created for the event and for visitors to be able to sample.

While the festival is primarily being held in Lagos this year is the first time that all the local councils of Lagos are officially partners in the event and this is the reason behind the involvement of school children from various schools taking part in the event.

Organisers of the event have stated that the main objective of the event is to develop activities, projects and municipal programmes under one single direction of the municipality. It is hoped that by bringing together all aspects of the municipality that a broader and more successful events and future events can be held.  The organisers admit that they have only a limited budget to work with but hope that the cooperation of everyone across the Lagos area will see this seventh festival being the most successful yet.

Events and festivals such as this one in Lagos take place across the Algarve throughout the year and are an essential part of the tourism initiatives in the region encouraging national and international tourists to visit new areas of the Algarve and to plan holidays and trips around large cultural events.

It has to be the weather that draws most people to the Algarve for a wedding – knowing that you can wear your beautiful dress and not having to worry about it raining is a big bonus for many people but before you book your flights and head over for a wedding in the Algarve make sure you consider some of the basics.

Firstly, as a foreign person getting married you need to make sure you have your paperwork in order.  To be legally married in Portugal you need to have your identification, passport and other documents checked by the Portuguese authorities and you also need papers sorted by the British authorities for the marriage to be legal in the UK.

You can always opt to have a blessing ceremony in the Algarve but without the paperwork then you will not be legally married and you will then need to arrange this when you return to the UK.

If you are unsure about the papers that you need and how to get everything legal then it is a good idea to employ a wedding planner in the Algarve who will deal with all of these little issues that could be a real headache for you but can be done simply by them thanks to them knowing the system and often having connections in the different notary offices across the region.

If you are having an official wedding then this will be done by a Portuguese person from the notary.  The ceremony will be conducted in Portuguese and you will need a translator who will go through the whole ceremony – you can then follow this with a religious ceremony if you chose but the official part will be done in Portuguese.

You can get married in church in Portugal but if you re not a Roman Catholic then you need to find a priest who will allow you to hold a ceremony and this can also prove a little difficult so again it is well worth contacting a wedding planner to arrange all of this and to leave you to worry about other parts of the wedding!

there are a number of priest, vicars and celebrants who will be happy to marry you in Portugal with an English ceremony but you need to decide exactly what you want from the day before you start to contact people.

These are just some of the basics about getting married in Portugal – I will discuss more details in a future post but my over all advise would be to employ the services of a wedding planner b- paper work in Portugal is notoriously tricky and it is best left to those who know best!

The Algarve club has avoided disaster, at least for now, after €288,000, an amount equaling half of the outstanding wages owed to the players of Olhanense was paid to the players.

If the money was not paid to the players then they were threatening to strike and to not play in the match against Benfica which is due to take place on Sunday and promises to generate a considerable amount of revenue for the club through increased ticket sales.

The captain of the team, Rui Duarte, and the president, Isidoro Sousa, announced that they have come to an agreement about the outstanding wages bill for the players and that they will therefore be playing against Benfica at the weekend.

According to press reports Isidoro Sousa said that the money to pay the players had been loaned to the club by a personal friend of his and that he did not wish to reveal this persons name.

He said: “The money was advanced to me by someone outside the club, a friend of mine who is not connected to the club in anyway.  We have done everything honestly and with transparency and have resolved the problem in house.”

The payment of a month and halves wages meant that the strike was called off by the players.

Isidoro Sousa added: “Although Portuguese law states that payment of wages should be made before the 8th of the month we have always paid players on the 15th of the month.  We owe three months of wages and have now paid one and a half months wages to the players.

He admitted during the press conference that it had been a “difficult week” at the club with “lots of hard work and suffering” but he added that he did not blame the players for their actions.

“Someone said that the players should apologise for calling a strike but they know first hand the problems and I am ashamed to say that we were unable to meet our financial agreements with the players.  I have apologised for the situation and the players have also apologised for their actions,” said Isidoro Sousa.

Isidoro Sousa has now pledged to try to work through the financial problems facing the club and stated that he believes that the club can come back from this situation that it is currently facing.

Olhanense need to not only sort out their finances, they also need to improve their play as they currently sit at 13th in the table and are dangerously close to the relegation zone.

Considered by many in Europe to be one of the best companies to work for, IKEA will not only be creating hundreds of jobs in the Algarve but these jobs will also be opportunities for many to develop their careers with training and development programmes for staff being made available.

IKEA spokesman Catarina Tendeiro told “Capital Human” that the Portuguese workers are highly regarded by IKEA and that staff in the Algarve store, which is due to open in 2014, will have chance to develop their skills and even travel around the world as part of the company.

She said: “IKEA have plans to open the Algarve store in the second half of 2014 and this will create 300 direct jobs.  The company also has plans to open a further four stores in Portugal by the end of 2020 and in total this will help to generate around 10,000 direct and indirect jobs in Portugal.”

IKEA focus heavily on their employees because they are seen as being key to the overall success of the business but the furniture and interior design store are looking for a specific type of person to come forward to work in the Alagrve branch of IKEA as Catarina Tendeiro explained: “We are looking for humble people who not only enjoy working in a team but are also good at interacting with customers.  It is also important that staff have an eye for design and can help to advise customers on what they may need.”

Unemployment in Portugal currently stands at 18% with the Algarve having one of the highest levels of people out of work.  This is due to the region relying heavily on tourism for employment – a sector that has been hit hard by the global economic downturn and also suffers greatly from seasonality.

The news that hundreds of jobs with 12 month contract possibilities will be welcomed by many in the region and job application numbers are expected to be very high.

A number of positions in management at the store have already been filled for the Algarve branch of IKEA because the company like to pick out individuals early who show potential and then to train them inhouse to meet the standards expected by the company.

The new IKEA is not only a great thing for employment levels in the Algarve, it is also welcome news for many residents and visitors who are keen to be able to access IKEA goods within the region instead of having to travel to Seville or Lisbon to visit a store and pick up the internationally known designs from IKEA.

The protesters were from the Commission of Users of the Via do Infante (A22) and they headed to the bridge at a time when hundreds of foreign cars were coming over and paying tolls before coming into the Algarve for the long Easter weekend.

According to reports about the protest there were plenty of cars stopping to pay the tolls on the A22 as they travelled into Portugal however the protesters said that their presence on the bridge should be seen as “symbolic” and that they have no intentions of stopping their protests until the tolls on the A22 are finally suspended.

João Vasconcelos from the commission told the Portuguese news agency Lusa that the protest was aimed at asking the “dismal government of Portugal to suspend the tolls on the A22 in the Algarve” with the tolls representing “a social and economic catastrophe of enormous size in the Algarve”.

He added: “This protest is another way for us to demand that policy makers look for a solution to the tolls in the Algarve.  This was a surprise protest aimed at highlighting the shame of the situation,” he said referring to the huge number of people who were being forced to pay the tolls to come into Portugal for the bank holiday weekend this Easter.

According to João Vasconcelos there were large queues of foreign vehicles on the bridge on Friday as they tried to pay the tolls to enter the Algarve “an anomaly that should never exist.”

He added: “Algarve tourism and trade is suffering great problems at the moment  and the tolls on the A22 are contributing to these problems and the rising level of unemployment in the Algarve which is also leading to businesses failing and less visitors coming to the Algarve.

“We will not give up our struggle against the tolls, we have been fighting this for the past three years and will continue to protest against the tolls until they are removed.”

The number of foreign cars trying to pay the tolls on the A22 was seen as shameful by the protesters however Estradas de Portugal responsible for the tolls stated that they believe that the systems in place are “sufficient” for the demand on the road.

Tolls on the A22 motorway were brought in over a year ago and initially there were discounts available for local users of the road however now everyone using the A22 has to pay the tolls to be able to travel along the road to destinations in the Algarve.

The alternative to the A22 is the EN125 road, a road that not only is in very poor condition but also sees many accidents making it a time consuming and dangerous alternative to the A22 for many people in the Algarve.