A farm that is still a farm
Fifteen hectares between Ourique and the hills, with two whitewashed houses, a stone threshing floor, and work that does not stop just because guests have arrived.
The land
The farm runs to fifteen hectares and nearly all of them produce something. The olive grove is the oldest part and the hardest work, six weeks a year when everything else waits. The orchard sits between the two houses: figs, oranges, lemons, pomegranates, quinces, and an almond that flowers in February and is the loveliest thing that happens here in winter.
The pond is small, ringed with reeds, and not for swimming. It is where the herons drink and where mist sits until eight in the morning. For swimming there is the pool, on the other side of the threshing floor.
The animals
The chickens roam by day and put themselves to bed at dusk. The morning eggs belong to whoever fetches them, and there is always a child who gets there first.
The donkeys are two, in the paddock beside the threshing floor. They are not for riding. They are for brushing, for carrots, and for walking down to the olive grove at the only speed that interests them.
The workshop
On land twenty minutes from the nearest town, a workshop is not a luxury: it is the difference between a tractor standing idle for an afternoon and standing idle for three weeks. Ours has a bench, a vice, a jack, axle stands, a compressor and enough tooling for most things.
And because it is here, it is open to whoever is staying, for a van that is knocking, a motorbike wanting an oil change, a bicycle with a broken spoke. We do not charge for it and we are not a licensed garage. We are just people who have the tools and see no reason to keep them locked away.
The houses
There are two, whitewashed with the blue *barra* painted round their base, the way it was always done. The Casa Grande has two bedrooms and the shared kitchen, wood oven and all. The Casa do Lagar has the other two, one of them opening straight onto the pond.
Between them lies the eira: stone, shade at the end of the day, and the long table where everybody ends up having dinner.
How we try to do things
- Water from our own borehole, metered, we know exactly what gets used and will tell anyone who asks.
- Solar panels for hot water in both houses.
- Everything from the kitchen and garden composted; it goes back to the orchard.
- The oil, the fruit and the eggs are ours. The rest is bought in Ourique, not at a motorway supermarket.
- No single-use plastic in the rooms. Refillable soap, glass bottles, tap water you can drink.
We do not publish numbers we have not measured. As the meters give us a full year of data, they will appear here.
- Land
- 15 ha
- Houses
- 2
- Bedrooms
- 4
- Sleeps
- 10
- Pool
- Outdoor, May–October
- Pets
- Welcome
- Access
- 2.8 km of dirt track
- GPS
- 37.7072848, -8.4594077
- RNAL
- 61/AL
Film of Monte da Portela Nova
Who you are staying with
Portela Nova
We live here. There is no reception desk and no call centre. Write, ring or message — we answer ourselves, the same day, in Portuguese, English and a good deal of gesturing.