We're delighted to present 3 new videos shot earlier this summer by the talented Lisbon film director, Tiago Pedro de Carvalho. We asked Tiago to capture the passion of our team, to take a look behind the scenes and explain a little better why we love practicing and teaching yoga here, why we prepare such delicious and nutritious food, and why we include massage and acupuncture treatments on every retreat.
You can also find these videos on our Facebook page. Help us spread the word about Vale de Moses by sharing with those you think might really enjoy retreating with us. View our calendar of retreats and reserve your place online via our Vale de Moses retreat website.
Showing posts with label Yoga. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Yoga. Show all posts
Sunday, November 20, 2016
Wednesday, March 9, 2016
10 reasons to retreat to Vale de Moses
By Katherine Smith, republished with permission from her own blog.
I rise in the stillness, to the sound of silence. I shower swiftly and pick my way across the olive terraces to the yoga retreat below. A quick coffee, a reflective moment and I am ready for the day, which always began with practice then teaching.
Stretching, sweating, laughing and sometimes even swearing before giving in to Savasana is how I remember mornings at Vale de Moses. It is the place I called home for two years before moving to Amsterdam and where I’ll be leading yoga retreats this May, August and October.
Vale de Moses is a small old valley farm nestled in the remote and picturesque foothills of the Serra de Estrela mountain range, Central Portugal. Here you can retreat for a week on the edge of wilderness, in the beautifully restored home of the Winter family, who will enchant you.
From mud-baths and forest walks to healing hands and floating yoga spaces there are almost too many reasons to retreat to Vale de Moses. It is full of magic and might just be the very escape your soul has been searching for.
Here are 10 reasons to go on yoga retreat at Vale de Moses:
1. Healing hands
2. The floating yoga shala
3. Hidden spaces & secluded spots
4. High vibes, mountain climbing and hikes
5. Morning walks in the woods
6. Furry friends
7. The food
8. The wilderness
9. Getting here won’t break the bank
Flights to Lisbon or Porto are usually inexpensive, from within the rest of Europe, if you time it booking them right. According to Skyscanner 7 weeks ahead of your trip is the best time to book affordable flights. (Direct coaches to Oleiros on Sunday afternoon where there'll pick everyone up by car. Lisbon 1.30pm Porto 4.30pm. Rede Expressos site.)10. Lisbon
And if you’re still not convinced. Watch this video.
Join me at Vale De Moses for Wild & Whole, 1-7th May, 7-13 August, 2-8 October or Get on your mat with Kat, 8-14th May, 14-20 August, 9-15 October.
Online Reservations showing live availability for each of my retreats. Prices start from €740 for couples or friends sharing a private room, 790€ for a place in the old stone cottages, or 890€ for a private bedroom, Soulpad or Tipi as single occupancy.
Kat x
Wednesday, May 13, 2015
The beauty of May in the Forest
Spring here in central Portugal is, by far, our favourite season. Warm and sunny already well into the mid 30 degree heat, cool in the evenings and mornings, with the heavy rain showers back in April, as always, precipitating such a splendid show of flowers, roses and colour everywhere. We love it. It's divine.
We just uploaded to our Facebook page some of our favourite guests' photos of their retreats here since March. A few on the blog today but do take a browse if you can. There are some stunners.
To help us capture the lushness of the landscape at this time of year, tomorrow a film crew arrive with a drone! They came last week to do some light testing and flight path work, and it was so bizarre to have a noisy little machine flying around the place. Like a wee invasion from the civilized technological world far far away. But we think it's the best way to film the valley and buildings here so it's happening tomorrow and Friday. Gulp!
On a personal note, although it's been wonderful to have so many more lovely people retreat with us again this year, Vonetta and I are missing our children terribly during the week days. Eloise is in Lisbon at art school and Josh finishing off his schooling in Castelo Branco. They’re both healthy and happy but we wish we could all still be together. Summer is here soon and they’ll be home for a while. ;)
As if I hadn't already realized that they’re both all grown up and flying the nest in search of their own independent adventures, the arrival of tattoos kind of visualized it for me. You won't believe how many times I've said I'm getting a Tat but always chickened out. Not our two though! They beat me to it. Maybe encouraged a little by the fact that where Eloise stays in Campo Pequeno, a new tattoo bar opened up last month beneath the flat!
Tipi is built
Paz e amor,
Andrew
Friday, June 22, 2012
A few plugs
Third 'shout out' is for the new yoga meditation pillows, Place, designed by Xana Lopes, a Portuguese shiatsu and reflexology therapist who is with us this week, and her sister. The pillows are big and generous and allow even for me to sit for more than 20 minutes without my body moaning. And that's saying something. We'l try to get some shots next week of the pillow in action to prove the point.
Memphis
Monday, May 14, 2012
Good Bye Mac Dada, by River
It is the
end of spring and the fires have been packed away for the year. The air is thick with warmth and moisture;
the moisture will remain for a few more short weeks before the ravages of
summer arrive. The day is unusually
clouded. The clouds, friendly and plump in
character confirm the muted enclosure of the landscape. On days like these everything is quiet, even
the little translucent moths are less hurried than usual. The dreamy charm of the landscape is
enhanced, by the beginning of the roses unfurling. The old roses have begun to tumble over the
mossed stone walls, their thin thorny stems heavy with bloom. This short and spectacular display I have
waited for all year will be over soon but for now we are enclosed in a world of
petals shocking pink, or bright garish lipstick red, or purest snow, white. The new roses of apricot and cream planted to
surround the kitchen garden are just swelling in bud and I will see them for
the first time this year. The smell of
roses drifts through every window, lifted as it were from the opening petals by
the humidity and heat. I find myself
doing any job that allows me to see them and smell them. It is almost impossible to step away from
their frivolous decadent generosity so delicate in this, timeworn part of the
world.
The day is
almost tropical in quality and recalls a garden I grew up in. A garden of mango trees that towered over my
head the fruit tantalizingly out of reach, and banana groves, of bougainvillea
falling over walls all the colours of the rainbow echoed in their soft tissue
like bracts. In my imagination I can see
a man walking and watering and weeding and preening and primping over his
plants. I can almost smell him warm and
salted from the tropical heat. I can see
his face creased with concentration determined to grow fine roses in spite of
the inappropriate climate. Sitting here
it is amusing to think he tried to grow roses in his bountiful garden when bougainvillea
grew like a weed. Here I am thinking of
how to grow a little bougainvillea in this temperate climate when roses grow
like weeds. It is always the same with
us gardeners, the desire to grow the impossible because a plant reminds us of
someone or a scene or a memory, or is just so beautiful that our desire is
ignited and we just have to have it.
I remember
him waking and stretching in the morning, before donning his filthy old work
clothes, sharpening his knife on an old belt head bowed and face in deep
concentration not even his breadth could be heard. He never went out before greeting his pack of
dogs, gathering his tools and stepping out into his landscape to fulfill his
ever growing desire for heaven on earth.
He demanded that I read my dictionary and anytime he came into a room I
found myself sitting bolt upright, immediately wanting to look, well,
occupied. Laziness was not to be
tolerated, and yet, he never moved quickly, he never spoke quickly, he didn’t
even blink quickly. He was powerful and
a little scary, but I can find no memory of him raising his voice to me. When or rather if the day’s work was
completed successfully and his light shone on you, you wanted to stay in it
forever. To me he was a typical gardener
where his every mood was so linked to the successful growth of his plants. This man was my Grandfather, who I liked to
call Mac Dada. He was one of my first
gardening teachers and yet he never said a word to me of plants, other than,
“Go eat the cherries or go pick some mangos” always words to encourage a taste
filled relationship so to speak. I watched
him, working tirelessly on his land, sweating profusely with the effort to
assist nature and to see emerging from the soil some seed that had first formed
in his imagination. To my eyes, it
seemed that some great symphony occurred between him and the soil, his subtle
refined breathing, music to the plant matter that eagerly rose from the ground
just to please him. What he did with
that landscape over his lifetime could only be said to be miraculous, and yet
not many people will ever see his garden or what his human hands made of that
place. Perhaps this is the way that the
greatest gardeners are, hidden and secret.
My
grandfather died today. I am very far
away from that garden and sad that I never got to see him for one last time or
talk with him about my growing obsession with plants. As I sit here at the computer with my dogs
curled at my feet and the fine old roses falling over the walls I know that I
owe a great deal of my life to the time that I lived with him in the West
Indies. Goodbye Dada, you were a
wonderful gardener, I watched you turn a barren hard piece of land into a
virtual paradise through tireless effort.
I hope to be as dedicated a gardener as you were. Today each petal of the roses that hits the
ground will be a prayer for you, I hope that wherever you are now there is a
garden without weeds or little things that bite, where all is crystal clear and
growing on a wish and a breadth.
Today also
another garden is being left behind.
Andy’s Mum and Dad will be leaving their beautiful London garden, a
paradise of dedication of nearly half a century. It was in this Dulwich garden
that I first bowed down and gazed up into the cheeky face of my very first
daffodil. It is so very hard to leave
one’s garden behind, but then all life moves on to new gardens and new planting
opportunities.
“And all
shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well. When the tongues of flame are in-folded. Into the crowned knot of fire. And the fire
and the rose are one.” T.S. Eliot
Boa Viagem
River
Monday, March 19, 2012
"The Joy of Yoga"
A big thanks to Emma who writes the Joy of Yoga blog, for posting up her interview with Vonnie yesterday.
Vale de Moses: Yoga, Massage, and Acupuncture in the Portuguese Mountains
One of the best things about the racket I run here are the folks I "meet" from all over the world. This week I received emails from Germany (Hallo, Bettina!), Guatemala, (Hola, Annie!), and-- as you may guess from the title of this post-- Portugal.
Ola, gorgeous Vonetta. Vonetta is the Senhoria of Vale de Moses, a retreat center in the Portuguese mountains. She read some of my posts from the past years about yoga and gardening (the season of which is upon us! Hurrah!) and emailed me about some upcoming yoga and gardening in Paradise (I mean, Portugal) retreats she has coming up. After some email correspondence, I decided I didn't want to keep her all to myself, so (without further ado, or further parenthesis), I introduce something very exciting....
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Saturday, December 17, 2011
A Day of Yoga
We found this truly beautiful video of yoga posted up on the web last week by Enrique Espinoza.
Enjoy...
A Day of Yoga from Enrique Espinoza on Vimeo.
Enjoy...
A Day of Yoga from Enrique Espinoza on Vimeo.
Saturday, December 10, 2011
Gloriously Sunny by River
It is a gloriously
sunny day today. Though the calendar
tells us that Winter is fast approaching I have been working all day in shorts
and a t-shirt. I am alone, well without human company. Just me and Moses and our new puppy Safira. Angel my wicked cat is around somewhere,
probably trying to tease hibernating voles out of their holes. The children are already at school and Memphis has gone to work on the roof of some friends.
It is a good day, a quiet day. (photo Yulia and Safi on yoga retreat)
It has been
almost a year since my last entry and I know some of you have been wondering
where is Von, thanks for the emails. To
be honest, I have been working and this year has flown by. We have had the great pleasure of housing,
feeding and watering a number of Woofers (Willing Workers on Organic Farms),
visitors, family and friends. A great deal of work has gone into the
vegetable production and with thanks we have eaten well all summer and into the
autumn. (Bill, Becky and Ollie round the Nov 5th bonfire)
We are still learning the art of
organic vegetable growing, and believe me it is not without challenge. This year we have met the challenges of
tomato ad pumpkin blight. Little
horrible bugs I have never had the horror of meeting eating the broccoli. I have had to sow all of our winter veg twice
due to some naughty get away chickens and a frisky puppy, even now the horrible
caterpillars are munching away on my lovingly watered and fed cauliflowers and nothing
organic I seem to try really works. Right
now I am preparing to begin the disgusting task of picking the buggers off one
by one, perhaps this will be futile but gardeners are known for the obsessive
love of perfect plants. (Entry in our Guest book by the frisbee throwing wwoofing gals of Kansas)
I know the caterpillars
will be back and we will laugh through this just as we have learnt to laugh at
all the trials and tribulations we have had here so far and press on
regardless. (Jonny battling Memphis at scrabble)
On the lighter and brighter side, the chilli
peppers have been sublime and after two years of trying to grow perfect chilli
peppers, the chillies this year have been my crowning glory! Hallelujah red hot chilli peppers by the
basket full. It is still warm enough for
the Calendulas and Californica Eschlotzias to be flowering. Their iridescent orange colours are greatly
welcomed at this time of year. Strangely
enough my Red hot Pokers are rising valiantly out of their sword like home of
leaves , their conical flowers just beginning to bronze, I look forward to
their ever increasing reddening, perhaps we will have Red Hot Pokers for
Christmas. (Eloise and Joshua, the most established of all the plants in our garden)
The Olive
harvest was speedily completed with the help of one of our very much
appreciated German Woofers, TK, big thumbs up to TK! It was great fun being up in the trees with
you. We are now pleased to have our own
Olive oil again this year, only half that we made last year as the trees are
semi biannually producing. 1 year bumper, 1 year low.
The other
big news this year has been yoga. After
thirteen years of grabbing practice time when and if I can it has been
wonderful to wake up before the sunrise and practice. I believe this is how I have managed to keep
sane, this year, mind you. Before we
came here, yoga was largely about the relaxation of the body, busy Mums need to
find ways to relax. This year however, it
has been wonderful, delightfully centering to simply be within myself, despite
all the plants that need watering, and the clothes that need washing, and the
hurts that need cuddling and the house that needs cleaning and the people that
need feeding. It is from this state of
stillness of meditation that all else has been given invitation to flower. Or, maybe I am just middle aged and needing
to be still a great deal more. Either
way I can safely say that meditation is a revelation. If you have never tried it, do, it will
change your life.
This year I
have also had the pleasure of teaching our first yoga retreat in Portugal
and also teaching some Woofers. How
wonderful to wake up in the morning and just watch lovely young people
stretching, earnestly trying to relax.
Very sweet. I hope to do more of
this as the years unfold here. It is a
beautiful place to meet oneself face to face.
There is something about yoga that invites the bubbling up of the
naughty happy child within us, and it is that child that will bravely go forth
to face the most gruesome of challenges, such as horrible caterpillars.
My first
Christmas present has arrived from Memphis, a tractor load of goat poo! Hooray.
Not the glamorous handbag or necklace kind of present, but it is just
the thing to put a smile on my face.
Big! Big! Big pumpkins next year. 2012 big! (Memphis relishing the battle with Jonny)
I guess one could say we are simply living a
normal life now. The builders have long
departed. The furniture, paintings and
photographs are largely in place. The
days are now made up of morning yoga, gardening, cleaning, sewing (I learnt to
sew this year, thanks Aunty Sally). The
nights are still nights of bonfires outside and music but all in all it is just
life. There are still an infinite number
of projects we hope to complete, chicken houses and barns and the little Adega
at the end of the hill. All in all this
Winter 4 are still bobbing and jumping and jiving their way through life with
all the enthusiasm we can muster, maybe we are getting older but some
meditation and silence is creeping in there too.
Off to
finish the Christmas tree. Happy
shopping to all… Thanks for the new
tunes Ian, digging the classical music. However,
I must say that Chase and Status are wonderful for chopping firewood too,
thanks Aunty Helen. Getting older is
better…
(Josh on da karaoke)
Peace and
Love
River
Saturday, May 21, 2011
The Gardens of Abrantes Castle
Peace and love as always
Memphis
Saturday, May 7, 2011
Ready to play
Before it's too late.
In peace and in play,
(Just off to pick up a little black Labrador cross German Shepherd puppy from Joshua's friend Paulo. We'll let you see her shortly I'm sure...)
Memphis
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