Every so often, when walking around the lanes, you come across a little prayer post built into the walls surround a field or the walls of houses. These prayer posts are called Alminha or Little Soul and are scattered across Portugal where ever you go. Maintained by the local women, an alminha is a small shrine which traditional represents a soul in purgatory and is filled with a candle and flowers (although these days it is likely to be a battery operated candle and plastic flowers from the euro shop). Traditionally, passers-by would pray and offer alms when passing one in the street. The alminh can depict Jesus or a saint, like the Patron Saint of lost things - St Antony or a Guardian Angel. In fact there are hundreds of saints to choose from..... take a look. It is a shame to see one not maintained but as the older generation pass away (there has been a spate of this recently with funerals every week in the local c...