Sitting amongst a carpet of yellow chamomile an almost intact ‘Moinho de Vento’ stands motionless in the dying light of a spring day. Traditionally, in the not too distant past, these windmills were a common sight across many of the agricultural areas of Portugal and out on the Azores too. Today there are lots of abandoned and derelict remnants of mills still around and occasionally you can come across one with a few or all the of the wooden arms for the sails still intact and even less frequent with the cotton sails themselves still wrapped around one of the arms or hanging bedraggled as seen here. In some areas some have been restored for private use, maybe as a small apartment type accommodation or studio, whilst some are more colourful and serve as a local tourist attraction. Regardless of their condition when you see one, they almost always bring back that warm feeling of remembering times gone by and wondering what it may have been like when they were working.
