Fabien Euskadi in full PhD mode

This is the Parish Church of Our Lady of the Light, in the Aldeia da Luz. Originally, the church of the Aldeia da Luz was built during the XV Century, in the exact place where, allegedly, the Virgin Mary appeared to a local sheppard. The original temple suffered some modifications during the XVI and XVIII Centuries.

In 2002, with the opening of the gates of the Alqueva Dam, the old medieval church was submerged, together with the rest of the village. The church that exists today is an almost exact replica of the old one - some elements (like the stonework or the frescos) were removed from the old church and reimplanted in the new one (bottom image).

This road (top image) used to lead to the old Aldeia da Luz, a small rural village (second image) that, back in 2001, had 363 inhabitants and 212 houses.

Between 1981 and 2002, the old village had its existence threatened by the construction of the Alqueva Dam, an infra-structure that was absolutely essential to provide the water supply to the entire region of the Alentejo; however, once the gates of the majestic dam where opened, the old Aldeia da Luz would inevitably be submerged by the waters of Europe's largest artificial lake (third image).

Before the opening of the gates, a new village was built (between 1998 and 2002), and the new Aldeia da Luz (fourth image) tried to be as similar as possible to the old one (fiith and six images). The new village built three kilometres away from the lost one.

19th November 2002 (seventh image) was the date when the population of the Aldeia da Luz was moved from the old village to the new one. The deceased ones had already been moved to a new cemetery. Before the waters engulfed the old village, most trees were cut off and many houses demolished (eight image). The death of the old village - a place where many had been born and where they had lived their entire lives - generated a collective trauma to the people of the Aldeia da Luz, who, till this very day, still long for the golden days of the old village (immortalized on a mural painting in the Luz's main square - ninth image).

Apparently, this is just a quiet village in the Alentejo, similar to any other village in the Alentejo. But this is not just another village in the Alentejo - this is the newest village not only in the entire Alentejo, but also in Portugal as a whole. This is the Aldeia da Luz ("Village of the Light" in English), named after the Church of Our Lady of Light, a temple built in the exact same place where, according to the local folklore, The Virgin Mary appeared to a sheppard.