Portugal is a country that we had little knowledge of and certainly no grasp of the (complex but wonderful) language. All our years of travelling through Europe on family holidays, we would always arrive home and fantasize about how it would be to live in a sunny climate; where the wine is delicious, the scenery is idillic and where there is an abundance of interesting renovation houses to choose from that could keep us busy; instead of going to work!

Ah yes! But what about the children? The children were still young and obviously we would have to consider their needs in respect of their friends and schooling. Bottom line – we never really got any further than just talking about it.

As I said, these conversations took place time and time again over the years. They became a part of the holiday de-brief. Everyone has them, right? We wanted to live in France, we wanted to live in Spain. We were going to buy a big property; maybe it should be a property with land for a ‘simple’ campsite. We could run a campsite!

You’ll note there are no fine details here – just ‘pie in the sky’ and an abundance of ‘the grass is greener’ ideology.

The summer before COVID-19 hit, 2019 was the year of our Camino de Santiago! We chose to walk the Portuguese Coastal Route (Caminho da Costa) from Porto in Portugal to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. A walk of 162 miles (260 km) that took us through parts of northern Portugal (Porto to Caminha), then crossing into Spain and on to Santiago.

It was a fantastic experience – we loved the walking and the overnight stops along the way, the little bars offering cold beer and simple sandwiches. The whole experience kept us in conversation for the next year or so.

I know what you are thinking. What has this got to do with retirement, COVID-19 or (very reasonably priced) wine?

Working from home was getting me down and really reinforcing that it was not what I wanted to do through to retirement. And so the topic of retirement kept coming up at our dinner table. It was time to hang up my gown!

Well, we’d walked-the-walk. Could we talk-the-talk?

We’d be great at running a hostel for weary peregrinos, we thought.  We could offer comfortable and affordable accommodation and dish up fantastic vegan food (we are both vegan) to weary camino compadres. The beauty of this plan is in the knowledge that most pilgrims carry their own bedding and generally do not expect too much in the way of accommodation. Pilgrim travellers get up early and off they go! So long as there is somewhere to clean-up, shower, eat and then sleep comfortably and safely, most pilgrims will be more than happy.

There is a great camaraderie on the camino and all of the pilgrims that we met were friendly and willing to share their experiences; having something in common with one another. We could run our establishment throughout the year – only closing our doors when we go on our own camino journeys or travels.

Vital part of the plan missing here though – we do not have any property on the Camino – France, Spain or Portugal.

And then there’s the subject of how we could fund such a move. This is where many things came into play and where many pieces of the finance puzzle luckily fell into place for us.

A random conversation with a close friend of ours suggested I might have some money in an old pension plan I had in the early nineties. We had also just finished paying off our mortgage, meaning we would have capital available from the sale of our UK property available to purchase abroad.  One of our daughters had always said that she would want to buy ‘the family house’ one day – and now that day was here!

A variety of other streams of income presented themselves and so this prompted a search for property on the internet which I must say really alleviated the boredom of not going out!

We spent quite a bit of time searching various websites for property (mainly) in Portugal. Eventually we came across a beautiful country house that was ticking all our boxes. Is this the perfect place being advertised, we wondered?  It’s on a Camino path it said. It’s an old Portuguese property with outbuildings. The scenery looks amazing. Well, (in our minds!) we had the whole place planned and renovated before you could say ‘outro vinho verde, por favor’. 

Everything was planned. The bunk house, the showers, WC toilet block and the bread-oven. This was the first time I had heard of a bread-oven and I was hooked (and just a little bit too excited)  😉  I now wanted the bread-oven. This was a small building outside the main house where obviously bread (and other foods) was prepared and baked – who would have thought!  We could start to make things! And there was another small building that could be used as a gift shop we thought. Running before we could walk now.

Big problem though. The location of the property on Google maps was a bit ambiguous. When we eventually found it on the satellite image, despite being promoted as a property on the camino, the house was at least six miles from the actual path. This was not good. With our recent camino hiking experience we knew that few (if any) pilgrims would walk this far from the way for accommodation at the end of their day’s travels. 

We were a little dejected (quite a lot actually), but the search continued with new fervour. Before we knew it, a property on the Pure Portugal website had presented itself to us.

Despite all my talk of the camino, Casa Grande isn’t actually on a camino route. But the house was so beautiful. And so, our plans changed (again).

I have to say, we both fell in love with Casa Grande on first sight. It was clear that there would be a huge amount of work to be done, but we don’t shy away from that. We are not getting any younger for sure, but we have time to relax into our new way of life and we are both hugely optimistic about our future here.

Casa Grande will be renovated and offer creative course workshops, retreat accommodation and a welcoming home for our family and friends, for many years to come we hope.

We have big (and smaller) plans for Casa Grande and I hope you’ll follow us on our journey and one day become part of our story.

Love and best wishes

Julie & Gary

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