We have been wanting to visit this gem in the Costa Vicentina region, but we have never got round to it so far.

Whenever we were passing through, we have always said that one day it would be nice to explore the area, because we have seen so many foreigners there all the time, we thought it must be popular for a reason.

Now we know why. It is tiny, but still, it has some things going on. The weather is nice and sunny and it is not as crowded as some other more popular cities at the Algarve, but it is close enough to those spots.

We have stayed in the old town in Aljezur. Loved our nicely renovated apartment, if you wanna have yours, I can recommend Porta Azul,Aljezur.

We have visited a shaper sanctuary for the first time in my life. I was super excited about this. It is no secret, that one day I would love to shape my own surf. So I found it fascinating how these beauties are made.

Barbudas surf in Aljezur is a service I can recommend to anyone who wants buy quality custom made boards or just needs a repair. The accuracy they work with is incredible.

We spent Saturday afternoon at the beach of Arrifana. There were not much waves, but it was just good enough for my daughter to practise. The weather was nice to play and do some gymnastics.

On Sunday we visited Essencia Nature Retreat that offers yoga retreats on a beauiful area. It is a 15 minute drive inland from Aljezur, through peaceful country scenery, with cork trees, medronho bushes, pines and cedar trees.

Once you get there, there is a lake on the right side and the land of serenity is towards the left. There are veggie gardens, nicely built guest house with a fantastic view over the valley. The yoga retreat studio is another unique building made with the famous japanese burning technique -shou sugi ban- that gives a chique looking charcoal black coat to the wood and makes it waterproof and also pests don’t like the bitter taste of the burnt wood either as we have learnt from the owner of the land.

Another fantastic thing to experience was tasting the local organic aguardente of medronho, a very smooth drink not too strong but strong enough. It is from the bushes that grow wild in this area. The fruit itself is yummey too. It reminds me of lichee.

Filled with so much great experience we had to start our way back to Lisboa, but all way long we had one thought in mind:

How would it be possible to move to this wonderful region even for a short period to enjoy its beauty and great community?!

Recently, we have seen David Attenborough’s new film reflecting on climate change issues on our Planet, then we have started to watch Social Dilemma … perfect combination of films to evoke discomfort in someone, because it is just inevitable to see the difference in the quality of life when we compare city life to country life.

It used to be that way, people lived at the countryside. It should have stayed that way.

City life is a rat-race no matter how bright it shines with billboards 27/7. One day (not in the far future) the lights will go off and the fast pace life will come to a halt because it is not what we are here for. Humankind got sidetracked and we need to wake up and change our direction before it will be too late.

It is essential for our kids to see different ways. To be able to make their choice when they grow up. Because there are many ways to live. Not only one! This generation needs to know, because they will need to face problems we didn’t have to.