Why Portugal?

How it began.

´Why Portugal´? We have been hearing this question weekly for years. In this blog I will let you know why we moved here. It is of course a logical question, people are curious and secretly want to take the step to emigrate themselves. What stops you? Your work, the children, grandchildren, your elderly parents that you don’t want to leave behind? We met after we had both already lived abroad. And believe me: after that it is difficult to stay in the Netherlands, to get used to it again. Something like ‘you smelled it…..’ We also found the Netherlands busy, many obligations, too little sun. My hobby is horses, so we also wanted to have a lot of land. Priceless in the Netherlands. When we were on holiday in France, we quickly fell in love with a beautiful farmhouse. We bought it, moved and had big plans. Still, we couldn’t really find what we were looking for. We sold it when we were expecting our first daughter and decided to continue looking for something more suitable. We now had a second daughter and after much traveling and research we ended up in the Algarve. The children were young, they adapted quickly and that’s how we picked up Portuguese life. After four years we discovered that it is not the part of Portugal we were looking for and we continued our search, but in Portugal because we wanted to stay in this country. So after some wandering we ended up in Travanca de Lagos. A small village in the municipality of Oliveira do Hospital, Central Portugal region. Also called the Beiras. A very different world than the south! Tough granite houses, everything much greener, many rivers, a beautiful mountain range on the horizon, the Serra da Estrela with snow in winter, and many small cozy villages. Our Quinta do Moreira estate used to be a large area in the valley between Travanca de Lagos and Andorinha. Due to many inheritances, the pieces of land and houses have been divided and only a small part of the once large area of this quinta remains. We have already bought back many pieces of land to make it a bigger whole again. The two ruins we bought were long abandoned and homeless. Many villagers have lived there, played there, grew up there and know a lot about it. We bravely started on the first ruin, which is now called Villa Clementina. It is now a combination of old and new, with lots of luxury and a private swimming pool. With of course the thick granite walls! We love Portugal for the space, the mentality, the beautiful nature and of course the many hours of sunshine!
Eating out, the child-friendliness in cafes and restaurants, the hospitality, versatility and village life with still social care and control.
Life here is calmer, less rushed.
Therefore Portugal.
It gives us exactly what we were looking for.