When, last year in March I went to visit a friend in the Algarve, the only thing I insisted on doing while there, was hiking the Seven Hanging Valleys Trail. Luckily she was up for it, and we tackled it on what turned out to be our only day without rain. The trail takes one […]
“Do I have a single identity – based on nationality, ethnicity, religion, class, gender or geography? Or am I essentially a mixture of multiple belongings, cultural allegiances and diverse inheritances, backgrounds and trajectories?”– Elif Shafak In her book How to Stay Sane in an Age of Division, Elif Shafak urges the reader to ask the […]
Portugal abounds with castles. Some could have been lifted from fairy tales, others have been used in fantasy films to create the otherworldly, and then there are those which were essential for security when the border between Portugal and Spain were not as clearly defined as it is today. Vila do Touro castle falls under […]
“We are all driven to belong. To be part of the tribe, but not everybody fits in the same way. We want a life rich with purpose and meaning. That too is in our DNA, but that meaning can’t be prescribed. It must be sought, and found, and sometimes wrestled with, and fought for.”– Aaron […]
What I would consider one of the most beautiful gardens in Portugal can be found in one of the most untouristy places in the country. Built by the Bishop of Guarda, João de Mendonça around 1720, the Episcopal Palace Garden or Jardim do Paço Episcopal in Castelo Branco, was part of a large agricultural complex […]
“Memory lies at the heart of human experience. It guides our ability to conjure up long-gone, but specific episodes in our lives to make sense of the continuity of self, of the relation between mind and body, and our experience of time. Our memories determine our identity – they establish where we’ve been, who we […]
Founded in 1147, the Monastery of São Vicente de Fora is one of those gems in Lisbon that isn’t overrun with tourists. It was built outside (“fora”) the city walls, after Dom Afonso Henriques, Portugal’s first king, made a vow during the siege of Lisbon that he would commission the construction of a monastery dedicated […]
“We’re all aggregates, finding, recognizing, offering to others different strata of ourselves at different times in our live.” – Pamela Petro There is something interesting that happens when one stays in one place for a prolonged period of time, especially after one was used to a life more fluid and flexible. Like a pot plant, […]
“Our species, whose origin stories lie in lost Arcadias, has always sought to re-create paradise on Earth . . . many of us have forgotten that these Edens didn’t just happen: they are the product of millennia of care and toil. If we really value them, the responsibility to preserve them falls on us.” – […]
Where we live, where we want to live, where we grew up, where we went to school or fell in love for the first time – these places shape us. The places we come from, escape from, love, loathe, long for, go searching for, unexpectedly end up: they define our lives. Place matters, and not […]
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