Bread-and-flowers eye candy hides strength at Festa dos Tabuleiros

Balance isn’t the only challenge – it clearly takes strength to keep a 33-pound vertical “tray” of bread and flowers on your head as you parade through the streets of Tomar during the Festa dos Tabuleiros [Festival of the Trays].

Hundreds of women dressed in white used strong arm, shoulder and neck muscles to balance the tall tabuleiros during the highlight of the 10-day religious Festa dos Tabuleiros that honours the Holy Spirit.

Despite seeing photos of previous parades and knowing what to expect visually, I was awe-struck by the determined looks on these women’s faces as they passed just inches in front of us. Many smiled, some serenely balanced their trays one-handed, but others looked hot, worried and strained after just 20 minutes into the 3.5-hour parade.

Strength and determination showed on the faces of the women carrying the 33-pound tabuleiros. Each tray is as tall as the woman who carries it.

The Festa dos Tabuleiros, held every four years, is a colourful feast of parades, traditional games, and streets gorgeously festooned with tissue-paper flowers. The last festa was held in 2019 – six months before Covid shut down the world. So, the festival planners lucked out – no festa was missed due to Covid!

As the tabuleiros passed by, people clapped, cheered, and called out encouragement and praise.

“Boa linda [Nice one]!! Boa linda!!” cried the woman beside me. “Bonito! [Beautiful!]”

People on the upper storeys hung out their windows or stood on balconies, cheering and throwing confetti, representing flower petals. Burgundy banners and paper flowers hung from their windows and balconies.

The men didn’t just look pretty – they kept close eyes on the women and quickly offered steadying hands on the trays.

Each woman had a male partner beside her, and they weren’t just there to look good, even though their ties matched the women’s sashes and ribbon belts. The men were quick to offer steadying hands on the trays and point out uneven footing, the bases for bollards (just in front of us), and transitions from cobblestones to pavement. Sometimes they lifted the tabuleiros up so the women could re-arrange the supporting “donut” cushions that sat directly on their heads.

So, what’s the background to this Festa dos Tabuleiros?

It’s believed to be based on an ancient harvest or thanksgiving ritual dedicated to Ceres, the Roman goddess of agriculture, grains, flowering plants and fertility – hence the bread and flowers. In the late 1200s and early 1300s, Christians co-opted the festa and it morphed into showing devotion and thanks to the Holy Spirit – hence the white doves atop the trays of offerings.

The story of King Dinis and Queen Saint Isabel strengthened the festa’s focus on bread and flowers. Generous Isabel used to go behind disapproving Dinis’ back to hand out bread to the poor. One day, he caught her in the act and she hid the bread under her cloak. He asked what she was hiding. “Roses,” she replied. When she opened her cloak, roses fell out instead of bread. This miracle, which later led to her sainthood, convinced Dinis to support her charitable works. 

Under Dinis’ reign, the Bodo do Espirito Santo, aka the Pêza, was added – a ceremony in which bread, wine and meat were given to the needy. It’s still a tradition on the last day of the festa. Until 1966, the flower-bedecked oxen who march in the parade, pulling flower-bedecked wagons, were slaughtered and their meat distributed to people. Now, their presence is symbolic.

Crowns, banners, water jugs, and oxen had their special places in the parade.

During the parade, priests carried silver crowns, symbolizing sacred and earthly power and alluding to Isabel’s influence. The oldest crown dates from 1544. Others bore burgundy banners with the names of parishes surrounding Tomar. Several men carried jugs of water, marching bands provided music, and Scout troops brought up the rear.

One afternoon, we watched traditional games – sort of a cross between Sunday School picnics, county fairs and highland games. Teams came from each of the 16 villages that take part in the festa.

The only event for women seemed to be the water-jug-on-the-head race. Men competed to see who could climb a slim pole and ring the bell at the top the fastest. They also rolled barrels along a course that went up and over a teeter-totter and paired up to saw the end off a log using an old tree-cutting cross-cut saw. The sack race and tug-of-war earned rousing competitive cheers.

Look at what can be done with tissue paper and wire.

Between parades, games and other events, people simply wandered the streets to admire the elaborate paper-flower decorations. They’re gorgeous – we were impressed by what could be done with tissue paper and wire.

Streets had themes: underwater creatures, the Holy Spirit, sunflowers, wisteria, rainbows. One street honoured Portuguese explorers such as Vasco da Gama. Another featured wreaths, each with incredibly realistic flowers, including baby’s breath, camelias, pansies and hibiscus. The great-paintings street highlighted Frida Kahlo, The Scream and Mona Lisa.

Two ladies sat on garden chairs to the side of their decorated street. We went over to ask if they had helped make the flowers, swans and garlands. Indeed they had, taking one year to complete their tissue-paper creations. That’s a good reason to hold the festa just every four years.

But there’s no doubt the Tabuleiros parade was the highlight, when tens of thousands of people lined the streets to cheer on women balancing their towers of flowers. We managed to snag a primo viewing spot in the front row close to the start of the parade route on a corner where the parade would pass by three times.

Now here’s a valuable lesson we learned. We had guarded our spot, with people lined up 15 deep behind us, in the hot sun for about two hours, waiting for the colourful event to start. After the parade went by, we relinquished our spot to those eager to get a closer view when the parade went by again.

We bought beers and found a shady spot in a park to drink them. Then we wandered to a quieter end of town and found a restaurant for dinner. As we headed towards our car, we noticed some activity down a narrow street, so we went to see what was happening. There was the parade again! It was still going, three hours later!

We stood one row back to watch it again, this time in the shade, with far fewer crowds. I have no proof but it seemed there were more local people watching and cheering, rather than crowds of tourists. The street was narrower so the tabuleiros were closer together. It felt more intimate and personal than when we’d seen it before.

That was also the time when the women, strong as they were, really needed the cheering. After 3.5 hours of marching through the streets, they had to be tired. Their faces showed strain and fatigue. Far more of them had problems with their tabuleiros; the men stepped in to help rebalance the trays more frequently.

The Festa dos Tabuleiros may have begun with young women wearing virginal white carrying the trays and praying for fertility. But now, many of the women were middle-aged or older, certainly older than me. I tried to imagine myself carrying that heavy tabuleiro in the hot sun for 3.5 hours and just couldn’t. My arms would melt. As much as I loved taking part in the Fiestas del Pilar in Zaragoza – actually being part of the parade rather than watching – I don’t think I could do what those Tomar women do. At the very least, they deserved massages, concentrating on their necks and shoulders.

Apart from the Festa dos Tabuleiros, lovely Tomar is worth visiting anytime. The star attraction is the incredible Convent of Christ, built by the Knights Templar starting in 1119 when they made Tomar their Portuguese headquarters. A restored medieval synagogue, the oldest in Portugal, illuminates the Jewish culture…until 1496 when they were forced to convert or leave the country. And under the heading of “Oddball Museums” is a matchbox museum, featuring 60,000 matchboxes, match labels and matchbooks.

The next Festa dos Tabuleiros will be in 2027. Do go! It’s fabulous. Here are our tips:

1. Book a hotel room early, very early. We booked eight months in advance and ended up 16 kilometres outside of town, since there was nary a bed in all Tomar then.
2. Plan your parking, which can be challenging. The town sets up special parking lots around the town’s perimeter with shuttle buses to get you closer, although there’s still a lot of walking to do.
3. Don’t rush to wait in the hot sun near the crowded start of the parade route! Pick up a copy of the town’s brochure with event times and parade routes. Find a shady spot closer to the end, where the crowds are thinner. You’ll feel more part of things.

We visited Tomar for the Festa dos Tabuleiros in July 2023. Find out where we are right now by visiting our ‘Where’s Kathryn?’ page.