Fortios is a rural parish in the municipality of Portalegre.
Fortios is situated at the foot of the Mata Amores mountain range and to the northwest of the S. Mamede mountain range.
The great ethnocultural and folkloric link of these Alentejo people is today the Rancho Folklorico Fortios.
Founded in 1981, it was in 1984 that it began an exhaustive ethno-folklore compilation, reconstructing through the knowledge of the elders the uses and customs of their ancestors.
Its ethnographic component is made up of working costumes such as those of shepherds, reapers, olive harvesters, machine feeders, the Fortios farmer, as well as Sunday and festive costumes, etc…
This group has been a worthy and authentic representative of the folklore of Northeast Alentejo in the different places where it has performed its folkloric demonstrations.
The Rancho Folklorico de Fortios has participated in various folkloric, cultural and ethnographic performances from the north to the south of Portugal and in the archipelagos of the Azores and Madeira. It has also performed abroad, in Germany, Egypt, Greece, Italy and Spain, among others.
He is an effective member of the Portuguese Folklore Federation and of the CIOFF Portugal Association, and is a founding member of the Alto Alentejo Folklore Association.
