Shopping

The town's most famous product is a type of traditional earthenware water jug. Known as a moringue, it has two spouts, one handle, and sometimes a decorative crest that's stamped into the wet clay before it's fired. At least half a dozen street merchants sell the jugs in the town's main square, Rossio Marquês de Pombal. Stylish reminders of Portugal's agrarian past, they're associated with love and marriage. (Housewives traditionally carried water in them to workers in the fields.) Some are simple; others are glazed in bright colors.

At Artesanato, Avenida de São António (no phone), you'll find hundreds of terra-cotta figurines, another of the town's specialties. Each represents an archetype from the Alentejo workforce, and the designs include artfully naive depictions of washerwomen, sausage makers, carpenters, priests, and broom makers. Artesanato also sells some of the region's other handicrafts, including metalwork, woodcarvings, and weavings.