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 […]
“Change is slow and gradual. It requires hard work, a bit of luck, a fair amount of self-sacrifice, a lot of patience.” – Robert Greene April has been a whirl of activity and colour. The landscape is lush and vibrant with the iridescent green of spring, interspersed with an array of colourful flowers and grass […]
The medicinal waters of Termas do Cró, located 15km north of Sabugal in Central Portugal, in all likelihood have been used for their therapeutic properties in Roman times, but, although some ceramics and coins have been found in the vicinity, there is no concrete evidence of it. The oldest reference dates from as recent as […]
“Every food has an inspiring birthplace and holds flavors directly connected to the places and people that make them.”– Simran Sethi Spring on the quinta is a tumultuous explosion of colour – white, yellow, and purple vie for attention, while the calls of the cuckoo bird punctuate a collective increase in the birdsong that fills […]
“We forget that the water cycle and the life cycle are one.” — Jacques Yves Cousteau Growing up on a farm where dryland farming was, and still is practiced, and where a limited water supply via boreholes was available for raising animals and domestic use, the preciousness of water has been ingrained in me. Taps […]
“Every human person is inevitably involved with two worlds: the world they carry within them and the world that is out there. All thinking, all writing, all action, all creation and all destruction is about that bridge between the two worlds. All thought is about putting a face on experience.” – John O’Donohue My writing […]
When we received a quote from our builder to build a retaining wall below the agricultural building he was busy erecting for us, we not only realized that we couldn´t afford it, but decided to do it ourselves. Well, let´s be clear, Michael decided, and I idiotically went along with his hairbrain idea, completely misunderstanding […]
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