CCB MEDIA PHOTO
Provincetown Town Hall
PROVINCETOWN – This annual Provincetown Portuguese Festival will get underway this week.
This year’s festival will be held from Thursday through Sunday and features dancing, food and activities to celebrate Portuguese heritage.
The chairman of the Provincetown Portuguese Festival Donald Murphy said the weekend will be full of events for the entire family.
“All weekend during the festival in Portuguese Square there’s entertainment,” Murphy said. “In the morning and all through the day.”
Murphy said that although they try to keep the festival close to the same year after year, they do try to make small changes.
“In the past, the food from restaurants that was contributed to this event used to just come from Provincetown,” he said. “But now the food is coming from the Lower Cape and we are very excited about that.”
Murphy said that one of the main events of the festival, the clam feed, has also changed.
“We’ve decided that we want to make a little change and it’s now going to be a lobster bake,” he said. “People are going to get lobster, corn on the cob, potato, clams and the whole fixing.”
The lobster bake will be held on Friday evening from 5 to 8 p.m. at the Bas Relief and will also include a cash raw bar.
Along with the food events, there will also be a number of things for the children to do throughout the four-day festival.
“There’s kid’s games on Friday morning,” Murphy said. “There’s a fishing derby. There’s competition. There’s Lobster crate races—something going on all the time.”
The festival will also welcome the new Bishop of the Diocese of Fall River Diocese Edgar Moreira da Cunha.
Da Cunha will preside over the 68th Blessing of the Fleet on Sunday afternoon.
Murphy also says the festival has received recognition from the Portuguese government.
“The festival has been recognized by the Portuguese council in New Bedford on behalf of the Portuguese government expressing their appreciation for what Provincetown does to share the Portuguese heritage of this wonderful community,” he said.
The 2016 festival has been scheduled for June 23 through June 26.
