From Our Own Correspondent-style despatches from a former BBC reporter who's now battling to live off the grid in the Alentejo countryside. Selected audio recordings of his weekly blog which began in 2020.
Surprised, interested, shocked, concerned and intrigued all sum up our reaction to the massive power cuts across Portugal and Spain, but perhaps the most appropriate description of our mood was: smug.
When the traffic lights went dark, petrol stations closed and panic struck the ice cream shops of the nearby tourist towns on our southwestern coast of Alentejo, we could rest easy.
Our freezer-load of wild boar (wild boar) wasn’t defrosting, our water pumps were working well and our wine remained nicely chilled.
While the lights went off across the Iberian peninsula, a healthy hum was heard from our control centre as our 84 solar panels were piling power into our batteries as usual.
We have the storage capacity of a large electric vehicle – a BMW or a Porsche Taycan – and yesterday when the lights went out we felt very much at the luxury end of the market.
We were buying fruit trees when the plant nursery billing system went down.
People in Vila Nova de Milfontes were standing in shop doors and milling around street corners burning through the last of the mobile phone tower batteries for online information and updates to understand why the “apagão” or power cut, had happened.
There was much speculation at the coffee-less cafés over what, or whom, might have been responsible for the outage.
The explanation as to why the whole of Portugal and Spain lost electricity for many hours has to get a lot better for people to stop thinking it was Mr Putin, Mr Trump or a cabal of satanic paedophiles.
I do tend to lean heavily into cock-up over conspiracy, but I’ll admit my work countering Russian disinformation led my first suspicions towards a Russian cyber-attack.
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But we were fine.
After years of learning to live off the grid, the thousands of euros of investment, power cuts and teething troubles, our system finally came into its own.
From the early days when we moved into our new off-grid home in the Portuguese countryside in the middle of the COVID pandemic we’ve been playing catch up with power.
We have learned the hard way what a lot of people realised yesterday – just how much power we consume every day and how dependent we are on electricity
The off-grid system which came with our house provided a lot less energy than we were used to – even moving from Kenya where power cuts were common, but we had a generator in the garden.
Toasters and ovens are the biggest culprits – and I’ll never use my hairdryer while ironing ever again!
After failing to keep the giant Tamagotchi of a lead-acid battery system alive we installed new panels and lithium batteries for us...and then for the 20 plus people we can cater for at the eco-luxe lodge we’ve just opened.
Three phases, hundreds of meters of buried cables, a lot of maths and fuse boxes later and we are...smug.
Last week my mornings had begun with a nervous eye on the app, as 17 Easter guests and some pretty rainy and cloudy weather tested the system, which happily passed with flying colours.
But while the rest of the region was powerless to do anything, our batteries were at 100%, our satellite connection kept the communications going and we were one of the few restaurants still open.
We hadn’t planned on making a fish braai for our guests Robert and Kim – and we’re not even a restaurant – but in the absence of a mobile phone signal to even ask the best seafood places if they were open, we confidently offered a three course meal complete with electric light.
The candles were merely for effect.
And the country-wide shortage of internet connectivity led a BBC producer back to my WhatsApp and the offer of a chance to play at my old job for an afternoon.
Our local Intermarché supermarket boss was almost as smug as we were – because their massive generator was keeping the meat and fish cold, the freezers below zero and the ATM cash machine running.
There was a touch of the early COVID days about it – even if the toilet roll stocks remained largely undisturbed.
We bumped into our friend Francisco from the A Terra glamping lodge – everything had gone off at his place and so he was at the ATM paying for 20 new solar panels.
“Because tomorrow the price is going to be crazy,” he told me.
“I should have bought them a long time ago, but now it needs to be done.”
Glenn Cullen who with his wife Berny runs a beautiful tourism lodge called Paraiso Escondido was also at the supermarket stocking up on water to help guests flush.
“The power cut’s a bit inconvenient...to say the least,” he told me.
“We rely on pumps for the water, electricity as we’d expect for the power, so cooking – breakfast, lunch, dinners. We do have gas in one of our kitchens, so we have got a standby.
“It’s a bit of a worry and something we have to think about for the future. Already we’re talking about getting generators to have backup. We have solar for hot water, but all the other things we take for granted: every day you turn the tap on, you flick a switch and communication – the WiFi is down. We rely on it so much.”
I do care a lot about ice cream – and was keen to volunteer my services to stop large amounts of it going to waste, so next stop was beach-front Zambujeira-do-Mar and Rita’s Restaurant.
Nuno Rita explained the gelato was straight into the freezer as soon as the lights went out and the door would remain shut until it came back on again.
“It will be fine as long as the power comes back within a day,” he explained, as much to my disappointment I realised my ice cream eating sacrifice was not going to be immediately required.
The Sunset Café was packed – André had his sleeves rolled up and was washing dishes while hikers on the long-distance walking trail Rota Vicentina were fuelling up on lunch.
“Traditional work – no lights, washing glasses with my hands, salads, sandwiches and Portuguese bifanas,” he said, talking about the traditional bread rolls filled with thin pork steaks he was dishing out to walkers.
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I’m pleased to say it was a mere 17 hours that our region was without electricity.
Our neighbour Daniel was up before dawn as usual and spotted a distant glow from the nearby town at around 5.15am.
Now is a great time to talk about community micro-grids rather than national grids, and how renewable energy can be better managed at a local level...however much the giant power providers may protest.
Solar panels have never been cheaper, but integrating small systems into national grids are not as easy as the “sell your renewable power back” offers suggest.
Our friend Niels discovered it was costing him money to sell his excess power to the grid and so invested in large water tanks and heaters to create different types of “battery” instead.
And our neighbour Jeff in Lisbon had taken steps towards energy independence by installing panels, but because he is connected to the grid he couldn’t use them when the blackout happened.
While conservative newspapers say the Iberian power cuts prove renewable energy can’t work at scale - because of the huge steps Spain and Portugal has made towards running on green energy - we have to remember that it must.
It’s perhaps more down to the traditional systems and the big, rich power companies which need to change and adapt.
And it’s also a good reminder that come the next zombie apocalypse we should be fine – all we need is a couple of extra shovels to hit them with and maybe a shotgun.
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Opening Time
dimanche 20 avril 2025 • Durée 09:15
For more than three years now there’s been a loop of thinking, building, pushing and waiting...but we’ve finally opened our doors to a flurry of guests.
With thanks to friends – and friends of friends – for booking in advance and betting we’d be ready, we had our biggest test so far this Easter holiday week, with six of our seven units filled and a peak of 17 people staying.
Despite all the fears of the whole thing descending into a terrible Fawlty Towers epsiode – particularly when two of the visitors were German – I think we managed pretty well.
We barbequed porco preto black pork, served Portuguese arroz de pato duck rice, braai-d some sea bass alongside Ana’s amazing moules and introduced our guests to some top Alentejo wines.
If only the weather had stepped up and given us a helping hand.
It’s the one thing we can usually rely on, but the glimmer of Spring which followed the reservoir-filling deluge of March evaporated into more heavy rain.
Whether it’s meteorologically correct or not, I am convinced that in these epoch-changing times of isolationism and authoritarianism...that Britain stole our sunshine.
It’s not the kind of behaviour Portugal should expect from the world’s oldest alliance.
As far as I can see, the weather doesn’t feature in the 1386 Treaty of Windsor, but in an age of re-interpreting old documents...things like the American constitution for example...I wouldn’t rule anything out.
It’s what I believe and therefore it’s true – it’s my truth and you just try to prove me wrong! Opá. As they say around here: oh boy.
Truth or not, it was certainly a reality for our guests from London who gave up an unseasonably warm Britain for an unreasonably chilly and disappointingly damp Alentejo Easter.
I’m very pleased to report a typically stiff-upper-lip keep-calm-and-carry-on attitude from guests and proprietors alike took us all through.
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We’ve done it!
dimanche 23 mars 2025 • Durée 10:47
Well, that was easy.
After years of waiting and hoping, begging and pushing, of sleepless nights and stressful days our reaction was...understated when the email came through.
We’d roped in a trade organisation to help us bother and worry the town hall decision makers and were told everything seemed on track and a decision would be delivered on Friday or Monday.
Friday nervously came and went as a warning that unrequited expectations can put a cloud over a weekend.
But on Monday morning the letter from our local câmara – or town hall – dropped into our inbox, and as usual was written in a way that needed translation, interpretation, further consideration and expert reassurance before we could believe what we thought we could see.
“Regarding the above-mentioned matter and for all due effects, I am obliged by order of the Councilor dated March 14th 2025...”
Yes...do go on...
“After a classification audit, a copy of Report No. 25/25 of which is attached...”
Yes, yes..?
“To inform Your Excellency,” yes-yes-yes, that’s definitely me, “that the Tourist Enterprise called Vale das Estrelas...meets the conditions to be classified as Tourism in Rural Areas - COUNTRY HOUSES.”
No need to shout. Wait, what? So that’s it then? Has anything else been slipped into the five pages of ifs and buts that says in some convoluted way how this will only come to pass after we have provided x and y additional documents?
No? Really?
OK.
In this way, played out in real time, was the anatomy of an anticlimax.
“The number,” we both remembered. “Now we need the number.”
We’d like to think we’re not just a number, but in terms of opening to the general public...of getting the quantity of people through the door we need to pay back our loans and pay staff we haven’t yet got...everything is about the tourism number.
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The Infinite Staircase
dimanche 16 février 2025 • Durée 07:27
Since our Portuguese adventure began, there are certain phrases I never thought I’d say out loud.
For example: “Once we discovered pillow tanks we knew we had the answer to rainwater capture.”
Then there things I never knew I’d even know, let alone say out loud:
“The LPWAN system is like WiFi over kilometres and it helps us blend our mineral salted water with rain to make drinking water...oh, and stops the pool overflowing.”
I mean, really.
And then there are those truly out-there unexpected sentences: “So we’re having an event in two weeks’ time celebrating Alicante Bouschet – a French grape the Portuguese made their own.”
I like wine, I like history, I love telling stories...and it turns out there’s a wine grape which does all three across Portugal, France and America and thoroughly excites normal people like us (or is that pushing it too far?).
More about the event on Saturday March 1st coming up.
But there was one message we received last week which we really never thought would come.
It was one of those distant hopes lying at the top of the Penrose Stairs – that infinite staircase you climb forever but never reach the top.
One of those things that for every one step forward, you take two steps back...and it’s only when you give up and turn around that you actually get there.
Or it’s like penguins toppling over watching a plane fly overhead: an amazing idea which could be true, but is actually just a myth.
You get the general idea. Anyway, the message said:
“You have your licence.”
Drumroll please.
Now, before you get overexcited and start inundating us with messages of congratulations, it’s only the licence to ...there’s still an inspection from the tourism authorities to come before we get our final stamp to fully open for business.
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Birthday Presence
dimanche 2 février 2025 • Durée 08:54
Birthday presents can reveal a lot about one’s age, stage of life and current circumstances, and this couldn’t have been closer to the truth than on the occasion of my 53rd birthday.
I mean this year’s couldn’t have been much more self-explanatory:
* two chequered shirts
* working dungarees with lots of pockets
* steel-capped safety boots
* a two-pack of crowbars
I presume this means there’s stuff to do in the country.
We are, of course, all aware that Darth Vader knew what Luke Skywalker was getting for his birthday...because he felt his presents.
But I imagine even The Force wouldn’t have helped the bloke in the black cape work out what was in the long and extremely heavy silver-wrapped box.
In retrospect, the clue which Ana always writes on presents should have given it away, but in my defence I had just woken up.
“Where Murders of These Guys Would Go,” it said.
Adding “...for a drink” still didn’t help me. But it was a high bar.
“Of course,” I exclaimed, as I excitedly ripped off the wrapping paper, forgetting how I’d mentioned a while ago how much I wanted a new crowbar.
But why two? You might ask.
Well either – like dogs – you can never have too many crowbars...or Lidl were doing a special two-pack deal...and you can never have too many crowbars.
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Itching as I was to get outside with excellent foot protection, carrying loads of tools in my dungaree pockets to start crowbar-ing things, there was a birthday to celebrate.
And so the most colourful of the fabulous chequered shirts was the first present to be pressed into use...once I’d enjoyed my fabulous birthday sandwiches and coffee despite the kind offer of help from the dogs.
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The Pleasure of Bleisure
mercredi 22 janvier 2025 • Durée 10:50
Januaries here in Portugal are more palatable than most northern hemisphere winters.
For one, I never do the whole Dry January thing because it’s my birthday month, and while we do need more rain, I love the clear chilly mornings which open up into beautiful sunny blue skies.
The low arcing winter sun strikes our south facing glass and pours heat into our house – something it doesn’t do in the higher-in-the-sky warmer summer months.
And the winter sun also brings enough heat for beach walks in shorts, ocean dips and plenty of power to keep the heat pumps running.
Cold air coming in off the ocean blows over our hill and sinks into the valley keeping our temperatures higher and providing spectacular sunrise views over seas of mist below which in the mornings slowly burn off and melt away.
Unusually we saw a little frost last week, but the new villa we’ve been trying out for ourselves has remained toasty thanks to the underfloor heating.
Of course as I put the finishing touches to this despatch the rain has finally arrived and we’re monitoring water collection pumps and power systems and getting our energy saving levels right.
Sun or storm, it’s a great chance to put on the fire get into the reading and research and to plan for success in this first year of being open for business.
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Every new year brings plenty of predictions of tourist trends for the year ahead – and so I’ve been deep-diving into some of the articles, reports and industry advisories to learn about Bleisure, Calmcations, PTO hacking and the “new dawn for oenotourism.”
It’s a lot to unpack, but at least one or two of every “top trends” list is exactly what we’re creating, so I thought it was worth sharing:
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The "Making Of" Movie
dimanche 29 décembre 2024 • Durée 04:52
Despite the excesses of Christmas, and the many visitors we’ve been welcoming to the valley, I’ve managed to put together a video of our whole building project as it took shape from start to finish.
As well as writing updates and despatches, I’ve been photographing and videoing our land ever since we started cutting down our tatty eucalyptus plantation almost four years ago.
I’ve documented every stage of the building process from the moment the first building supplies arrived (and we realised this crazy idea was actually going to happen) to the very first wine tasting event we held a few weeks ago.
Edited together from thousands of photos and hundreds of videos I hope you enjoy our look back at what we’ve achieved so far as we prepare to start the next stage of our journey and start running the place in the New Year.
There’s so much more I could have included about our water treatment and electrical systems: the hundreds of metres of trenches dug and the miles of pipes buried, but this is a quick review of how we created our new eco-luxe lodge.
The loan is not going to pay itself back, the rooms need to be filled and we need to start employing local people to help us, so please get in touch and book a stay.
Ideally we’d like to start out with big bookings - groups of friends and family - or running retreats based around wine or walking or painting…so if you know anybody who runs retreats please put us in touch.
With group bookings in the diary we can bring in chefs, arrange trips and transport, set up yoga classes and massages and introduce visitors to the amazing hidden beaches of the last wild coast in Europe.
Yes, we were in the ocean yesterday, and yes it was a little on the chilly side.
And don’t forget…the clue is in the title…we’re off the power and water grids: fully sustained by the sun, and by the water from our land.
It’s eco, but it’s luxe…and it’s not just a great place to get away from it all, but also to learn about Portugal and about sustainable living, enjoy the peace and quiet of our countryside and our amazing coastline, try the local food and wine, and to do it all leaving just a tiny footprint.
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The Big Plan for Our Second Life
dimanche 8 décembre 2024 • Durée 07:53
We started the Google search with escarradeira, then moved on to cuspideira and then we started calling people.
A few hours and many phone calls later we realised we just weren’t going to be able to buy any spittoons for our first big wine event at Vale das Estrelas.
And there are some pretty compelling statistics for why that might be.
Who, you might ask, are the biggest wine consumers in the world...France? Italy?
No, and no.
At 61.7 litres per person per year, it’s Portugal by a looooong way, so I guess people here don’t really feel the need to spit it out.
It was explained to us very well by João Barroso of the Alentejo wine commission: “Wine in Portugal is a staple food” he told us. And that’s why the prices are so low, the quality so good, and the consumption rates so high.
People here like to lunch – for at least a couple of hours every day – most shops shut, workers gather around a shared dish in their favourite tasca and it’s all washed down with a jug of table wine and maybe even a shot of the local medronho firewater with a coffee to finish.
As foreigners in Alentejo the options are to: a) get stressed about not being able to go to the shops in the middle of the day...or b) learn to have a long lunches.
You can imagine which option we’ve settled on.
In The Big Plan for Our Second Life, wine has wound itself into the centre of everything we’re doing here.
Wine, of course, is all about the story – a good wine can sell for three or four times the price – if the story is good enough.
And what can be better for a storyteller than to ply one’s audience with booze while the story unfolds? It is only going to improve.
With this in mind we held our first public event in the valley in partnership with Howard’s Folly – a wonderful winery headquartered in the eastern Alentejo town of Estremoz.
Howard Bilton is a Yorkshireman we met through a Hong Kong connection, and he makes wine in collaboration with Alentejo’s favourite Australian winemaker David Baverstock ().
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Real People
samedi 23 novembre 2024 • Durée 08:38
I’ve recently realised we don’t live like real people.
When real people have a problem they call someone: a workman, an expert, a master technician, Ghostbusters, or whoever it might be - and they come with some tools and they solve it.
It costs some money and takes some time to arrange, but it works. They know what they are doing, and grumbles aside, they get things working again and real life goes on.
But somehow I’ve found myself in the position where I’m kind of responsible for everything...and when stuff breaks I have to work out for myself how to fix it.
I’m not entirely sure how that happened.
Obviously the not-being-connected-to-anything thing means we’re pretty much off most workpeople’s grids when it comes to the usual sorting of things like gas and electric.
We’re very lucky to have some amazing people who we’ve met over the past few years who are the real experts...but I don’t want to bother them for the small things which I can probably do myself if I’m careful...or if I find the right YouTube channel.
In retrospect, taking my expensive De Walt drill apart to repair it was a bad idea...but I really didn’t know it was going to be that fiddly or complicated to put back together (it now just about works, but slips and makes a terrible grinding noise).
Given that getting this place up and running - and keeping it running - falls under my area of responsibility, I do pay a lot of attention to what the professionals do when they’re here.
Much more so than real people might do.
They trust the experts to get on with it unsupervised and don’t need to know how they do whatever it is they’re doing to make problems go away.
Perhaps my engagement and enthusiastic nodding confuses them into thinking I understand what is happening, can remember it, and might even be able do it myself next time as it will save them the hassle of a home visit.
And we are “bootstrapping” things as they called it at the Stanford Graduate School of Business classes we sat in on while there on a journalism fellowship.
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Opening time
mardi 22 octobre 2024 • Durée 07:54
Sometimes we thought it would never happen, but four years after moving to Portugal full time and two years after construction work started on our retrospectively but objectively crazy off-grid eco-luxe lodge project we are finally ready to open.
The cut-down-and-dug-out eucalyptus forest where our new buildings now stand is a distant memory, the views are as stunning as the first day we found this amazing property, and we’re ready to start tackling a new chapter in our second life: running a tourism business.
We were warned how long the finishing works would take – especially as it’s all been down to us – but the beds are made, the rooms look beautiful and we’ve already been using our Clubhouse for trial-run dinners and wine tasting events with friends.
You won’t find us on AirBnB just yet of course...the licensing process and the permissions are still pending, but we’re on track to start hosting some events and retreats over the next few months and will open to all in the Spring.
The tourism authority’s help in postponing capital payments has lifted a huge weight off our shoulders, but now it’s up to us to lure people to our perfect part of Portugal.
Alongside frustrating bureaucracy, the biggest challenge of all has been overcoming our lack of connections to power and water grids.
But our water is no longer salty, the waste-treatment reed beds are thriving, and a test run of the villa’s underfloor heating sent the temperatures soaring along with our confidence that it’s going to be a toasty winter.
Real time power use data is streaming into my phone, which I’m also using now to control the heat pumps.
We haven’t got all of the monitoring systems in place just yet, but the first post-summer storm was a good test for the rain-collecting systems and to work out how to manage all the pumps and heating systems so we’re never without power.
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It sounds so easy written down, but we’ve been ironing out all the bugs, and learning by doing I’ve realised I need to write a guide-book if we are ever going to get away from the valley for a few days and leave it all in the hands of someone else!
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Apologising, however, by suggesting they stay another week as “it’s going to be beautiful from Tuesday” is straight from the Basil Fawlty playbook. (Note to self: don’t ever do that).
Without the lure of constant sunshine, our Clubhouse became the Clubhouse it was meant to be: where people hung out around a roaring fire, chatted around the dinner table, and where younger guests played cards and started learning to play the guitar.
The rainy March didn’t give the pool much of a chance to get up to a good temperature, but that didn’t stop many people from giving it try...some of them every day.
We’re so lucky that cold water swimming is a thing.
But the ocean proved to be surprisingly warm for the surf lessons, and on the occasional beach days the sun forced its way through with enough potency to sizzle unprotected skin (guilty as charged!).
Our neighbour Daniel kindly patched up some of the bigger holes in the road for Ana’s birthday, but the holiday and the continuing rain means it will be next week before the proper repair work begins.
The horse riding was a great success, the secret beaches a big hit, the local restaurants proved popular and most importantly the off-grid power and water systems thrived in their biggest challenge so far: lots of people and lots of weather.
We’re still tweaking our water dilution system for automatically mixing rainwater with mineral-salted borehole water, but it’s got off to a great start.
I’ll be writing more about the long range WiFi / Internet of Things LPWAN technology we’re using soon as I finish editing a BBC radio programme I’m making on the topic with some really interesting Portuguese examples.
The tech is keeping our swimming pool flowing for infinity and beyond (hopefully), watching over our tanks, keeping our drinking water perfectly palatable, and will soon be managing the fabulously nutritious water emerging from our treatment plant ready for irrigation.
My maths surrounding our whole power grid was always shaky, and with many showers testing water pumps and heat pumps, and lots of induction hobs being used, there were some nervous early morning checks on the batteries, but the system held up really well.
Gamifying the shower experience with “beat the egg timer” hour glasses attached the wall seemed to generate some interest and some competition.
The guests were the Jennings family from Yorkshire...Sarah, my godson Atti and Hugh who has been many times before to help out and was lured into the occasional odd job despite being a paying guest.
Dedicated blog reader Jeremy Grant surprised his partner Siobhan with a trip to Alentejo and landed amid the chaos of people with delight over the view...after having followed our progress almost from the start.
The other families are friends of my old pal Matthew Price – adventurous London professionals with a love of exploring with their brilliant young teenagers – who he strongarmed into coming along to an Easter excursion on the coastal Alentejo.
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The German couple were early adopters on Booking.com who stayed for some comfort at the start of their long Rota Vicentina hike down to the Algarve.
Different dietary requirements got us thinking about how to make the perfect dinner, I started developing some breakfast skills...and there was some troubleshooting running roof repairs in high wind.
It was a fantastic start to our new venture and adventure – thanks so much to all four families involved for visiting Vale das Estrelas.
We are realising that there are two sides to this job: attending to guests while they are here, and working even harder behind the scenes to find new ones to come and visit in the future.
“It’s marketing, marketing, marketing,” our friend Vera told us, and she and Cam have already made a thriving business out of their tourism resort Quinta Camarena a bit further north of us in Cercal, so it’s good advice.
Our own website and booking engine has been at the heart of it and despite the urgency, we’d been waiting for a break in the rain and the return of a little sunshine for our talented interior architecture photographer friend Cia to take some proper photos.
She spent hours working with the light and the angles to edit together an amazing set of images.
It’s always going to be hard to properly capture the scale of our views and the feeling of calm here through photographs, but @ciajansen (check out her Insta) has done us proud.
We’ve fussed over the photos, tweaked the text and agonized over the pricing strategy, but finally can unveil our new website www.valleyofthestars.co.uk or for those in Portugal www.valedasestrelas.pt
I hope you like it – please have a look through it...if only to search for the glaring mistakes we’ve made in our prices which will allow bargain-bucket bookings.
It’s our soft-opening year, so we have lower prices than similar properties in the area to give us the leeway to learn.
Ana’s new mantra is that every visitor’s expectations must be exceeded when they arrive – rather than the other way around.
Please help us out by sharing it with all of your networks – and if anyone wants to rent the whole property for a retreat please get in touch directly and we’ll make a plan.
This journey is going to continue having its challenges – first with our workload as we learn to do everything ourselves and then bring staff in to help us in the most important places.
And that’s also a challenge for us here where staff are in short supply.
We’ve been so lucky that our fabulous friend Lotti – a former deputy Swedish ambassador and top lawyer – used her Easter vacation to come here and help us wash up!
We couldn’t have had such a successful week without her (thanks Lotti!)
And on that note, I’m turning to you again…wonderful readers...if you know anyone looking for some paid summer work, we’re looking for people experienced in the hospitality industry, working in wine, or restaurants to help us out.
How many weeks, we wondered, would it take to get that?
Monday afternoon was rainy and not packed with optimism as we dived into the Turismo de Portugal online portal and started filling things in.
We called a few times for guidance...and a woman called Maria João picked up pretty much straight away...every time.
But the last call to Turismo irritated the person who picked up.
“Yes...of course,” she said sternly. But we repeated the question anyway: “So that’s our number? Our actual tourism number? The number we need to open to the public, to list on AirBnB, to run our business? So what do we do now”
“Well rent out your rooms of course! Is there anything else?”
There wasn’t.
There was just a number. One. Two. Five. One. One.
Not the snappiest, nor the most symmetrical, but it was ours and it was beautiful. Our. Own. Number.
Finally, licensed...to bill.
We reached for the champagne as we had some other numbers to celebrate.
It was St Patrick’s Day – and the 15th anniversary of Ana and I getting together.
It’s been a stormy March here in Portugal, and we’ve been using the time to get our new website firmly under construction.
As four named storms pummelled the Portuguese coast, we’ve been pulling together years of photographs and months of thoughts and ideas about how to best describe our property, and do it justice.
As I said last month, all we’ve got to do now is make sure all those people who will love the calm, the serenity and the undiscovered beauty of this place will find us.
As storms Jana, Konrad, Laurence, and Martinho rattled our windows, scared our dogs, tested our dams, filled our water tanks to overflowing and gorged out a river down our valley, we sent Word files full of copy and folders packed with pictures to GuestCentric’s designers.
They’re a website and booking engine company for small-hoteliers like us (I like the sounds of that), and will hopefully take the pain out of listing properties, prevent double bookings and encourage as many direct enquiries as possible.
But while they work away finessing and finetuning we plunged straight into what is the hell of AirBnB and Booking.com profiles to put ourselves out there ASAP.
That was a frustrating couple of rainy days in our life that neither of us will ever get back.
Why is adding photos to room profiles so difficult? How do we navigate the different included or excluded fees and taxes to set prices that match our expectations but aren’t too much for the visiting public?
Why are there so many sections that need to be filled in?
As the squalls of heavy showers are becoming more scattered and infrequent, the sun is shining through literally and figuratively as our room profiles have gone live.
So here they are – finally – links to our AirBnB profiles.
Taking their name from stars and constellations the three suites are called Sirius Altair and Vega; the Bungalow’s one-bed place is called Aquila and the two-bed apartment is Lynx; and the Villa has Andromeda and Cassiopeia.
Spread the love, my friends...please spread the love.
Four major storm depressions in March is a first and although the rainfall hasn’t overtaken levels of 2018, the year 2000 or the more historical averages, there have been 100mph winds along the west coast and quite a bit of damage caused in Lisbon.
There are trees up and flood damage all around our region too.
“Unusual...but not unprecedented,” is how the Portuguese Institute of the Sea and Atmosphere or IPMA is quoted by Portugal Decoded.
It’s a great news site in English which I’d heartily recommend. They have an obsession about making a carefully crafted infographic every week...and who doesn’t love an infographic.
The winter weather has certainly become a personal obsession as we need to balance our power use on those rare weeks when sunshine is at a premium, and so keep a close eye on the Apps: Weather Underground and Ventusky are my go-tos.
And I learned early on that it’s the Azores High which is the most important influence on the Iberian peninsula.
When it’s a little weaker and further away from the Iberian Peninsula, as it has been this winter, some of Britain’s weather ends up here. Imagine.
“Rising ocean surface temperatures suggest climate change may be playing a role,” Portugal Decoded add, with North Atlantic sea temperatures 3 or 4 degrees Celsius above average in places.
But proper Spring is now most certainly on the near horizon.
Despite the high winds, the cuckoo is back...somehow it made it through storm Martinho!And I’m sure I heard a Nightingale the other day.
And the medium-range forecasts are no longer packed with precipitation and the temperatures are going up into the 20s Celsius next weekend.
As soon as this rain stops and the temperatures soar we’ll get out planting and prepping the land before the mud turns to concrete, and get started on clearing all the rapidly growing brush to protect us from fire.
But the main priority right now – as our finances reach pinch point – we have to learn how to run this place properly...and fast.
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Some of you reading this despatch will have followed our progress for years, others a little less, but it’s a major milestone to announce we are finally open for business.
Thank you for your support...it’s really helped...and if you or anyone you can think of might like to come and visit to see what all the fuss is about, please share this post.
I’m pretty sure there’ll be plenty more to write about as this journey continues to unfold!
But...actually...do please inundate us with messages.
Because we’re delighted, astonished, amazed, blown away and all sorts of other predictable synonyms one can use, given the circumstances.
The message just popped into our inbox one afternoon, but to begin with the letter kept us guessing.
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Written in the fabulously complex high Portuguese and in the best traditions of formal legalese we read it, looked at each other quizzically, ran it through DeepL and were even more confused than before.
“I hereby inform Your Excellency,” it began, “that following the approval of the aforementioned request, the application timely submitted to that effect and the payment of the respective fees, the ‘Response to the communication, for use after urban operation subject to prior control no. 9/2025,’ which is attached hereto, was issued.”
“Is that good?” we asked each other.
“Is that good?” we asked our architect.
“It’s good,” our architect replied.
So now we have a long list of things we need to make sure are in place before the tourism inspection.
It includes mirrors, soap, electricity, a big rule book, drinking water, a pile of local tourist guides, a complaints book and a waste water treatment plant.
There are a few other rules for “Agro-tourism” establishments, but we’re classified as Casa do Campo...or country house.
(Just as an aside, I love the concept of “agro-tourism” – presumably when you arrive you are greeted by a furious host hurling a string of verbal abuse and screaming at you?)
Anyway, there’s plenty of work to be done.
The website building is progressing, but we’re waiting for the sunniest of days to take the best photos.
And we keep being distracted by fabulous visitors.
Top Portuguese winemaker Hamilton Reis came to visit and Ana cooked up a feast for his wife Susana’s birthday dinner.
“Is it OK if I bring my own wine?” he asked. “Oh, go on then,” we replied.
Hamilton is winemaker at the legendary Mouchão winery and produces his own Natus Vini wine...which is usually served in the best Michelin starred restaurants.
Some old university friends were in town and were treated to some of the best Alentejo wines going.
Among them was Nick Spotswood who has the Spotswood wine estate in Stellenbosch, South Africa and loved his first steps into Alentejo vinhos, even if his dinner table deep discussion with Hamilton over the brix system for measuring sugar content in grapes wasn’t for everyone.
But all were blown away by what we’ve achieved – at least that’s what they told us – by the local fish and porco preto black pork, by Oda’s amazing LA-style cocktails, and by the beaches (yes, we managed a February ocean dip).
Shameless Plug
To celebrate our successful licence approval...and the launch of our next podcast episode about one of the oldest, most historic, and most amazing wineries in Alentejo, we are holding a special wine event on Saturday March 1st.
Space is limited, but we have two amazing winemakers talking about Alicante Bouschet – a French grape which (as I found myself mentioning at the beginning) Portugal has made its own.
Developed in the mid-1800s to give poor French wine a deeper red colour, it was brought to Portugal in the hope it might resist a bug destroying Europe’s vineyards (it didn’t), but it then thrived in the heat of Alentejo.
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Hot on Hamilton’s heals we have Mouchão’s custodian Iain Reynolds Richardson telling the many amazing stories of his family’s 250 years of Portuguese history, how they introduced Alicante Bouschet to Portugal and how he now champions simplicity and tradition in his winemaking.
And French winemaker Baptiste Carrière Pradal (Domaine de la Massole) is bringing his single varietal Alicante Bouschet from the region in the south of France where Henri Bouschet created the amazing red grape with red juice in the first place.
If you’d like to support us and help us celebrate do come along.
Contact us directly for more information, but we’re offering a three course dinner, a guided wine tasting by the two aforementioned marvels and a stay in our lovely eco-luxe lodge for one or two nights at a really good price.
So, if you’ve been thinking about coming to see us, now’s the time! Ping us a message.
Lunch with Ana and neighbour Daniel – during one of his fleeting visits to the valley – was at our favourite clifftop restaurant O Sacas, and then it was back to the Clubhouse via the beach to continue the shelebrations.
A January birthday is always a nice lift after the post-holiday comedown, but the holidays extended themselves this year as we were lucky enough to have our daughter Oda and her boyfriend Derek staying with us from mid-December well into the New Year.
Derek also celebrated his birthday before Christmas – with a trip to the birthday beach and a stunning lunch of all his favourite things.
We’ve found an amazing straight-from-the-source oyster supplier (with thanks to our friend David) and our butcher considers bone marrow to be only suitable for dogs which makes it considerably cheaper than in Los Angeles!
Our present, and the theme of all his birthday sandwiches was “a night in a castle” and so we took the guys to the fantastic Estremoz Pousada in the Alentejo interior.
Derek really enjoyed the trip, the meals, the experience...and to be honest his baggage allowance wouldn’t really have stretched to one, let alone two crowbars, to take back to LA.
A few projects were ticked off at the farm including getting the raised beds built, but we also took advantage of a slow tourist month to take a couple of trips up to Lisbon to stay at our flat and enjoy some city time in our suitably named Estrela neighbourhood.
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The calçada cobbled pavements in that part of Lisbon feature various black star designs which inspired those arranged in a constellation on our limestone deck in the valley.
We’re just across the road from the landmark Basílica da Estrela and one of my favourite places in the world (and certainly one of Simon’s favourites) – the Jardim da Estrela.
Dating back to 1842, it was designed in the style of an English garden and has the most incredible mature trees: towering palms reminiscent of LA (with matching streetlights) and giant spirit trees like the one under which we were married in Bangkok.
Parrots play in the treetops, ducks do their thing in the ponds and a peacock puts in the occasional appearance.
Sculptures and statues, an old bandstand, lawns, coffee kiosks, a giant children’s playground and a maze of paths makes it the go-to place for workout classes, dog walks and happy hour.
Simon the ageing Hollywood dog is utterly in his element there, spending hours piecing together the pee-mail stories of every dog in Lisbon and becoming less obedient and more food obsessed with age.
Garfunkel is less keen. Order, security and control are what cattle dogs pine for – not the chaotic city sounds of trams and traffic.
There are only two safe spaces for Garfie in Lisbon: the flat, and the big red box of freedom which magically transported him here from his rural home at great speed...and can just as magically take him back.
Most trips to Lisbon involve the running repairs required from a short-term rental property and it’s a good yardstick to how far my tinkering skills have come.
I’m pleased to report replacing toilets, fitting ceiling lights, extensive drain cleaning and advanced shower replacement are now firmly in my repertoire.
The place is back to being tip top, so if you fancy a stay in Lisbon this is our listing on AirBnB...but if you have dates in mind please contact us directly.
But Lisboa was not all work – we discovered some wonderful new wine bars and restaurants and were honoured to attend our friend Mauro’s 40th birthday bash in the very cool Fábrica Braço de Prata.
It’s an area emerging from an old industrial zone to give vibes of San Francisco when artists could still afford to live there.
It was fantastic to wander the arts space and meet Mauro & Rita’s friends and family and – in the same week as my birthday – to be treated to my own cake.
I do hope Mauro wears that Alentejo farmer’s flat cap we brought him from the countryside!
Back in the valley, outdoor work has taken a bit of a backseat as a decent bout of rain has kept us indoors making sure all the animals are warm enough.
With the rain coming down and amid cloudy skies, there’s something strangely exciting about having a hot shower, knowing the water was heated at the same time as we were, courtesy of the roaring wood fire.
And there’s something even more exciting about watching a 200,000 litre pillow tank gradually filling up with rainwater to see us through the summer.
We’ve been staying in each new unit making sure it’s comfortable and properly equipped, casting a critical eye across everything, making tweaks and improvements as we go.
The list of DIY tasks never seems to get any shorter, but the slow calm approach to craftwork makes it more of a hobby than a chore.
Anyway, a higher priority right now is to make sure all those people who will love the calm, the serenity and the undiscovered beauty of this place will find us.
We’ve been plotting and scheming marketing strategies, planning retreat proposals, making lists of people to approach and getting down to the serious matter of website construction.
If running a retreat – or just attending one – is something you’d like to do with us, please get in touch. Art, writing, wine, wellness - send us a ping.
The next date for your diaries is Saturday March 1st when we’re planning our next wine weekend of tastings and dinner at Vale das Estrelas with a chance to stay over.
This time we’ve decided to celebrate the French grape that Portugal’s made its own: Alicante Bouschet.
We’ll be hosting a dinner with the amazing Mouchão winery and our great friend Baptiste Carrière Pradal who will be visiting the valley with his family wines.
The Alicante Bouschet grape has been a personal obsession for a little while now – and there’ll be a new podcast episode coming out very soon, so if you haven’t signed up for The Big Portuguese Wine Adventure, now’s your chance!
* In terms of tourism for nighttime, our skies are really dark and usually clear. The reason we called our place “The Valley of the Stars” was because of that first night we spent at our new home when we sat outside with a glass of wine and stared up, gobsmacked, at the Milky Way soaring across the sky above us. We’re a bit too far south to offer the northern lights, despite this coming year’s peak of solar activity, but I’ll be working on my astronomy knowledge over the winter months for another string to the storytelling bow and we’ll be investing in a telescope or two for a closer look.
* Calmcations “focused on creating a sense of tranquillity” are very much our bag, and I can understand why, after this WHO noise report quoted in the article revealed that 20% of Europeans live in unhealthily noisy places. The quiet calm in our valley is something our friends always love – relaxing time to take in the nature – a silence only interrupted by frogs, owls, the eagle that lives over the hill and occasionally the extended playlist of the Nightingale. With yoga and massage to suit some visitors and wine tastings to calm others, this style of tourism is front and centre of what we’ll be doing at Vale das Estrelas. We’ll be offering little retreats based around painting, pottery, wine, writing and hiking....that kind of thing.
* As for “Off-the-beaten-track goes mainstream” I’m happy to report our off-grid track is firmly in the un-beaten category and our area is home to the last truly wild and undiscovered coast in Europe. We face the hills and valleys, but there’s an endless supply of rugged wild beaches and coves to explore just 15 minutes from the lodge.
* According to The Portugal News there are More Brits heading to Portugal and why wouldn’t they? The UK was the largest source of flights to and from Portugal from January to November last year and the number of British travellers increased more than any other nation. Quoting a Statistics Portugal report, the article explained that more people in general are heading to Portugal. It was apparently a record year for visitors, and November 2024 saw a 6.2% increase in passenger numbers year on year. Research Nester’s Global Tourism Industry Market Overview reports Ryanair will have 5.2 million affordable seats to Portugal available as part of its summer 2025 schedule.
* And even more are coming – the IPDT Tourism Barometer predicts 33 million tourists will visit Portugal this year – up from 30 million in 2023 (the last year with figures). According to their survey of professionals in Portugal’s tourism sector, they highlight “a focus on sustainability.” Reinforcing the “Off-the-beaten-track goes mainstream” thing, they predict 2025 will be about “demystifying the perception of overtourism.” The IPDT believes “dispersing visitor influxes from overcrowded areas to less-explored regions is key to maintaining balance and reducing tensions in popular destinations.” So leave the city and come and see us in the country!
* And it’s not just about holidays any more – a BBC article about people staying away for longer talks about “blended travel trips that include both work and leisure, which are occasionally referred to by the mush-mouth portmanteau of ‘Bleisure’". So now you know. That’s also where I discovered the concept of PTO hacking (Paid Time Off) which was apparently a big TikTok thing – the idea of combining national holidays with paid leave to get longer breaks. Quoting a Skirft Research report there’s apparently a “shift to spending on experiences over things” and it could be "the year of long getaways." With the continuing popularity of remote working and Portugal’s Digital Nomad Visas we’re hoping to lure some people to WFV (Work from the Valley) and stay with us through the winter. It’s why we put in underfloor heating.
* That fits in with record November numbers seeing the tourist season extending deeper into Autumn and people travelling earlier in the year. “Spring is the new summer,” according to Zicasso’s luxury travel report, which says March to May is becoming increasingly popular for holidays and that Portugal is now the sixth most popular place to visit in the world – up from eighth for the last couple of years. There’s still a broad interest in “food, culture, wine, wildlife and adventure.” And younger travellers are showing more interest in culture and history. Repeat travellers are interested in off the beaten track tourism and there’s “an increase in requests for eco-friendly and sustainable luxury options.” Marvellous.
* The most interesting thing Conde Naste Traveller announced from our perspective was “a new dawn for oenotourism” as “curiosity around lesser-known and re-emerging wine destinations is growing.” The Alentejo wine region is becoming increasingly popular, but it’s crazy hot inland where most of the wineries are! By bringing their stories and their wines for tastings at the cooler coast we hope to take advantage of the interest in 250 indigenous wine grapes and put vinho at the centre of our tourism.
* The Portugal Portfolio puts the Rise of Sustainable Travel in first place, both with the demand for “eco-friendly experiences” such as eco-lodges and Community-Focussed Tourism. “Tourists in 2025 won’t just be looking for breathtaking views; they’ll want responsible ways to enjoy them,” the property management company says. They emphasise Off the beaten path exploration: “Travellers are seeking lesser-known spots, avoiding tourist-crowded hubs. This desire to discover “hidden gems” will shape new...local tourism economies.” And on ‘Bleisure’: “Digital nomads are no longer confined to coffee shops in major cities; they’re branching out to smaller, scenic locales offering reliable internet, cultural richness, and a stable environment.”
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* And as a final thought...less about tourism and more about a longer term move...the Financial Times featured a big report recently on “Creating new utopias in Portugal.” Sadly it’s behind their firewall, but all their examples were in Alentejo and they quoted Claus Sendlinger, founder of Design Hotels saying “Portugal has become the new California,” and a “fertile ground for experimental developments.” We’re certainly that! Portugal Portfolio has a similar take: Portugal’s New Utopias: Sustainable Communities is about environments that “blend modern comforts with eco-friendly practices.”
So my take-away from all this is that we’re doing something right. Eco-luxe, off-the beaten track, place for Calmcations, Noctourism and the “mush-mouth portmanteau of ‘Bleisure’". What a great line, I do love the BBC.
We need your support as we soft open…it’s even more beautiful once you get here…so please help us make a success of the lodge now we’re finally ready to open. This is a big year for us.
The new website will be live soon, but for now here’s a summary of the rooms we have available and the prices we are offering in our first year of opening:
Thanks again for following our journey and for reading my despatches from Vale das Estrelas. Your support, comments and great advice along this journey means a lot to us - perhaps more than you think.
Please spread the word about this blog and what we’ve created, and I’m sure the stories of the next stage of our new life will be just as…interesting.
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And even more importantly, all the very best for the New Year.
Let’s hope 2025 holds great things in store for all of us.
I’ve written about Howard’s Folly before...back in 2021...have I really been writing this blog for that long? I guess I have.
The winery is run by Howard’s son, managing director Tom, who brought their whole range of wines to our stretch of wild coast for our first tasting event.
We decided to make a day of it – invite some friends to stay, hire a chef and put on a proper dinner afterwards...and take the first tentative steps towards running our hospitality business.
Our plan is to hold regular events for locals and visitors alike to bring the history and the stories and the wines of the Alentejo interior to the coast.
We sent out invitations and were overwhelmed by the interest...but then had to deliver!
A stressful couple of weeks preparing everything followed.
It was ambitious to have a wine tasting and a dinner in the same place on the same day...having never done this before.
But it was also a deadline to get the kitchen ready for professional use and the apartments finished and fully furnished – down to the last knives and forks and whisks and colanders.
Thankfully the weather was beautiful and 45 people joined the wine tasting outside with our amazing view as a backdrop to the event. Tom was fantastic – and the wines were great.
We bridged wine and the dinner with more booze: an adventure down the hill for guests to try some medronho made by our friend Jorge, kindly hosted by our neighbour Daniel.
Our vizinho has been working some magic on his property recently – totally transforming his whole hillside with plants and trees: landscaping like a demon before winter takes hold. Daniel was the perfect host.
The three course dinner back up the hill was a huge success – helped along by Howard’s wine – and it was great to meet some new folk and bring people together.
Our winemaker pal Mauro Azóia, his wife Rita and the kids also joined us and brought a special delivery: a car-load of our first Valley of the Stars wine...and the labels we had lovingly created and he had arranged to be printed.
We roped in our friends Danny and Carole and their friends Alfredo and Carol to help us label the first hundred bottles and dip the tops in colourful wax.
It’s a red wine made entirely out of the Castelão grape and we used the beautiful image of a sunset over our valley painted by Ed Sumner, as the artwork for the label.
The first wine to carry the Vale das Estrelas logo is now available for sale! Come and stay with us and buy one while stocks last...we do have a couple of hundred bottles, but Christmas is coming...so you might not want to leave it so long!
We still hope to plant our own vineyard in March if finances allow – we’ve been asking advice from every oenologist and viticulturist who would listen, on the proviso that we will only plant Portuguese grapes.
Close to the ocean and away from the classic Alentejo wine region we will have to battle with the moisture – and the bugs that can bring with it – but it’s likely we will plant Castelão for our red wine.
Unveiling our new wine; with Mauro the winemaker; Danny, Alfredo & Carol with the newly labelled bottles; and the label with art by Ed Sumner
So it is even better to be able have a fantastic Castelão hand-crafted by Mauro as our first ever wine.
We think Arinto and Alvarinho will be the whites we plant, but the study continues – we’d love to get it right first time!
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The wonderful Portuguese-adopted Dane Carsten Jensen who’s the bedrock of the nearby Vicentino winery, paid us a visit to advise how to prepare the land for planting, and we’re hoping to secure the plants from Dorina Lindemann and her Plansel nursery.
It’s an amazing process seeing how they prepare the vines by grafting Portuguese varietals on to American rootstock...as they have done since the phylloxera bug first devastated Europe’s vineyards in the late 1800s.
That’s episode three of our podcast series Ana & Al’s Big Portuguese Wine Adventure and we think it’s worth a listen – and it features us learning to spit out wine for the first time.
We may not have had any cuspideiras available for Howard’s Folly, but as sensible grown up wine people, we did buy some vases which could be suitably repurposed.
Suffice to say they weren’t needed.
But we do now have a few spittoons on order for next time, and the time after that…
In other words doing it on the cheap: if I can do it myself next time, then we save money.
All this perhaps explains why, when the solar hot water pump started making a very expensive sounding noise, Guido the German boiler master felt confident enough to tell me I could do it myself.
“You just need two pairs of pliers of the right size,” he said after watching the video of the screaming water system and recommended a new pump.
I’m sure there’s a lot more to it than that...but he is very busy at the moment...I mean, what could possibly go wrong?
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One thing we can now do very successfully by ourselves is roast chestnuts on an open fire.
This year I celebrated Verão de São Martinho (St Martin’s Summer) - officially now one of my favourite times of the year - by buying a metal chestnut roasting pan.
(I say that, but we could have smoked some salmon as well while we were at it - the first use of the fire filled the place with smoke until I gave the chimney a good old brush and we were back in business).
St Martin’s Day (November 11th) marks the opening of the talhas and the releasing of the fresh natural wine still made in huge clay amphorae here in the Alentejo as it was by the Romans two thousand years ago.
We made our now annual pilgrimage to Vila de Frades (Friars’ Town) - the spiritual home of talhas - to taste the new wine and meet the winemakers.
And this year we were invited to take part in a couple of films being made by famous Portuguese wine writer Madalena Vidigal called Rota Tesouros do Alentejo (The Treasures of the Alentejo Route).
Each episode looks at a different aspect of Alentejo wines, and we were invited along as special guests to learn more about old vines and talha wines - at Vidigueira cooperative and ROCIM where Pedro Ribeiro makes amazing wines with clay pots.
He hosts an Amphora Wine Day every year with wine producers from all over the world who make wine with clay...and it gets bigger every year. Again it was a great day out - as was the amazing annual Wine & Friends lunch at Hamilton Reis’ Natus Vini.
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I wrote about our trip to Vila de Frades for the opening of the talhas last year and it’s great to look back at this time a year ago and see how far we have come in our building project and how chaotic things were 12 months ago.
Hopefully we’ll soon be hosting talha winemakers here in Vale das Estrelas.
St Martin’s Day also tends to coincide with a spell of beautiful sunshine, warm temperatures and a surge of growth for all the plants before the temperatures drop.
The meteorological explanation is a little wobble in the high pressure zone over the Açores - one of the most important influences on Portugal’s weather.
The Atlantic is the warmest it has been all year thanks to the warmer southern waters being pushed north during this annual transition into winter. Maybe we’ll even venture to the Birthday Beach this weekend...
I spent a good amount of time down a rabbit hole investigate g the story of St Martin’s progression from plain old Hungarian Martin, to patron saint of the poor, of tailors, winemakers and curiously both soldiers and conscientious objectors. Oh, and of France.
It’s all linked in with Halloween, Martinmas, bonfires, Remembrance, tricks and treats... and some Polish competitive croissant baking.
This year the temperatures quickly dropped after the wine jars had been opened and all efforts in the valley were focussed on making sure all the dry wood was chopped and stashed under cover before the real rain arrives.
My old pal Hugh Jennings was on a whistle-stop volunteering trip to help, and after some back-breaking hours with the splitting axe we had enough prepared to see us through winter.
We also took the chance to make sure the rainwater collection systems were properly set up.
It’s a vitally important part of our water plan to collect loads of rain over winter, and so Hugh spent hours siliconing the gaps between our solar panels while I secured the guttering and pipes we’d installed last year to increase the flat surfaces area to harvest rainfall from.
This time we have a reception tank and a proper pump to take all the water we can up to the storage on the hill, so we don’t waste any.
The pillow tank has already grown courtesy of some October rain and now I have meters installed to see just how well the system is running...and to keep tabs on our water collection.
Full is 200,000 litres…fingers crossed.
I guess there are some things I’m becoming an expert at - living sustainably...that we are certainly doing!
I wrote back to Guido asking if it was really all that easy to just change the solar water pump without emptying the whole system of very hot water.
“You’re right, that will probably be too much of a problem for you,” he replied, while requesting more photos of the offending items.
The dials revealed perhaps a leak in the system and the pump might just be whining about it rather than failing...maybe it’s something I can solve it after all...watch this space.
I’ve grumbled about DIY, but seeing things finished and installed lifts the spirits.
The coffee tables look great, the wooden tables work as well as the wall of homemade shelving units and we’re happy with our homemade outside LED lighting.
Ana’s done an incredible job with the interiors which look amazing – so much time and effort has gone into choosing the furniture, the finishing touches and the style and now we’re plumping up the beds ready for their first proper photo-shoot.
Once those are taken we can launch our new website, and that comes complete with booking engine so we can start lining up some guests.
We’ve been doing some tours for friends who visit, so we thought we’d record one to give you an idea of what we have done with the place so far.
We’re obviously itching to get open and it’s been a frustrating time with the goalposts moving and different documents being variously needed or not needed.
We have been stalking our architect and our structural engineer to the point that the latter complained he feels like we’re holding a gun to his head.
After months of waiting for his particular piece of paper we have occasionally considered it...although his draftsman assures us that this won’t be necessary and it’s “almost ready.”
There seems to be some movement at the town hall as well...with a request coming in for a final payment...and then of course there’s the tourism license to come...but we’re quietly confident.
The Post-It Note wall is back and is filled with ideas for retreats and packages to bring people to Vale das Estrelas.
We’ve decided the best way to get started before we can advertise accommodation to the general public is to run specific events at particular times.
The notes on the wall include writing and storytelling workshops, art and photography classes, making ourselves a base for long distance walkers on the Rota Vicentina trails...all interspersed with wine, local food and a bit of yoga and massage.
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We’re thinking of astronomy stays and events based around our own personal solar system (and water system), to encourage people who might like to follow in our footsteps either off the grid or into an entirely new direction in life.
Would you, or someone you know, be interested in partnering with us and getting something fun up and running to bring people together in Portugal?
We’re open to all sorts of ideas so please get in touch.
Wine is going to be at the heart of what we’ll be telling stories about, so what we can get on with in the meantime is some events to bring together friends from here with visitors from overseas.
We hope to host something new next month, so if you’re interested in coming to see us in the last weekend of November to hear more about Portuguese wine, do get in touch.
We’ve learned so much about Alentejo wine over the past few years and the Wines of Portugal marketing body seem keen to help publicise our podcasts worldwide.
It was amazing to attend the opening party for our closest local vineyard’s brand new beautiful winery.
Vicentino has invested in a cutting-edge winery just a few minutes down the road, and owner Ole Martin Siem toasted its opening with their first ever Espumante – or Portuguese champagne.
I’ll be writing more about that on the wine blog soon, so do sign up for updates and new podcast episodes.
Our friend Luís Martins also made a big step recently – leaving Vicentino to launch his own wine-tasting business, and we’ve been happy to host him for an introduction to some local wines we hadn’t come across before.
There’s still a load to do, but finally the momentum is starting to switch from the construction, to constructing thoughts about how we make a success of Vale das Estrelas – particularly during the winter months and our first proper season in 2025.
