Surrounded by a cork oak forest and giant granite boulders, the chapel of São Pedro de Vir-a-Corça looks small and plain. Insignificant even, as it is the landscape that makes the strongest impression on visitors. It feels wild, mysterious, and ancient. The inselberg, against whose flank this chapel nestles, rises sharply from the surrounding landscape […]
“Walking helps thinking. You mull things, the landscape, your life, as you stroll along.” – Paul Salopek We often think that we have to travel long distances to find beauty and wonder, but we forget that it can also be found in our own backyards. Sometimes even without having to set foot in a car. […]
I’m told that it is tradition for families in Portugal to gather on the 24th of December, and like in most cultures it is the dinner table around which it happens. It doesn’t come as a surprise then that the Catholic Church recommends a period of fasting before Christmas. Families gather after Midnight Mass on the […]
“Obstacles don’t have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.” – Michael Jordan Between the realisation that the heating system being installed wasn’t going to do what we thought it would (unless we spend […]
“. . . the degree of our awareness is the degree of our aliveness. What is invisible to me is what I have not yet learned how to see. The invisible becomes visible through our attention, through stillness, through silence. And patience.” – Terry Tempest Williams November was filled with a bounty of mushrooms and […]
“Every food has an inspiring birthplace and holds flavors directly connected to the places and people that make them.”– Simran Sethi The day dawned clear and cold. A layer of frost carpeted not just the lower lying area, but also the brown and green swirls of grass at the feet of the olive trees. It […]
“We abuse land because we view it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.” – Aldo Leopold The late afternoon light did nothing to lift our spirits. Our first glimpse of the land in early […]
“Conquering any difficulty always gives one a secret joy, for it means pushing back a boundary-line and adding to one’s liberty.” – Henri Frederic Amiel The time, energy and effort it takes to learn something new can be so overwhelming or intimidating that we simply shy away from it, even when it is something we are […]
“Faca.”I frowned.“Faca.” She repeated, this time adding a hand gesture.It took me another split second before it dawned on me that she was asking for a knife. A big one. I nodded and walked inside. But I’m getting ahead of myself. This story, although it ended last week Saturday, started at the beginning of the […]
“I like to believe that life is half-light, half-shade.” – Fernando Pessoa Any big transition is filled with uncertainty and stress, but making one now currently has an added layer of ambiguity, as official rules can change in the blink of an eye. So, when the Immigration Lawyers strongly recommended, a week before my scheduled […]
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