CASA DO VALLE

Summer has finally arrived, with temperatures over 30ºC in the afternoons! The temperature rise coincides with the holiday period of the southern Europeans, which means that crowds will be thicker. We have many suggestions for you to make your visit in Sintra more enjoyable! Here are some of them.  Remember that more will appear, and we will keep you posted through Facebook, and of course the information board at the reception. First of all, Sintra is full of fabulous historically and culturally important monuments and most of them are well visited.  There are also some that are less famous but equally interesting.  Do you really want to see them all? Is Pena Palace really what you want to see is its fairy-tale park what you were imagining? Are you more interested in walking in the nature than seeing art? Choose well where you want to go and let us help you if you are not sure what Sintra has to offer - believe me, it's a wide variety of things.  That is one of...

Sintra is the capital of Romanticism. There are numerous great examples of this era in architecture, parks, and landscape. Even today we are reminded of this as horse-drawn carriages trott through the cobble-stone streets. The romantic era translates into the modern idea of romance, and Sintra has become the desirable place for wedding proposals, special celebrations and of course weddings themselves. The churches are booked solid as both local and international couples come to Sintra to exchange their vows. Many parks, manor houses and beaches are also popular wedding venues - and recently also some of the palaces started hosting weddings. Every year we also host several weddings at Casa do Valle. The setting, close enough to the palaces to see them clearly and far enough to see them all at once, is perfect for a small wedding.  The gardens lend themselves to multiple settings, from formal to casual, and there are endless possibilities of creating different spaces. We have a...

Gluten free bread for breakfast Many of our guests are still surprised when they order their breakfast and we ask if they prefer gluten or lactose free products - or if they want tomato to substitute the ham when they say they are vegetarian.  This is not common in Portugal.  Though the Portuguese bread is fantastic and cheeses are really tasty, unfortunately many places in Portugal  fail to recognize that there are increasingly many people with a condition that prevents them from enjoying these things, and thus would like an alternative. We seem to make an exception here, offering both lactose free and gluten free products in our breakfasts. There is a similar situation with vegetarian food - if you want anything other than a salad, know that the Portuguese do have excellent soups, and often even the coffee shops have a soup of the day option. Many places in town offer an omelet or a pasta as a vegetarian option, but not so many where you can safely order your ...

Next week I am off to the Matka 2013 Travel Fair in Finland.  It is the biggest fair of turism in Scandinavia.  I am not going because it is Finland - though that is an added bonus.  I am going because that is a market that interests us here in Sintra, and the local tourism entities are not going there, for whatever reasons. In November, I went to the similar one in London. This last summer we took part in a study of a master's student from Copenhagen Business School.  It was quite interesting - we found out what is most important for clients when they choose a small accommodation unit like ours - and once they are here, how we perform.  This study came about as we in Sintra have seen a major change in the tourism structure in the last 10 years.  Before, there were very few beds in Sintra, and the visitors that came here were, for the large part, day-trippers.  What we had here was a few 5-star hotels, mainly.  When Casa do Valle started...

We have had the most gorgeous winter!  After the last two rainy winters, we have just enjoyed a solid month of sunshiny afternoons and cool nights.  Perfect for outdoor activities, such as walking, hiking, bicycling, sitting at outside cafés, horse riding, golfing... Last night we started getting some rain, which, let's face it, was already needed for crops, and it IS the season for rain, anyway, so we should not complain!  But it has been really nice to go for the walks and do many outside activities without having to worry about showers. And after today it should be nice again for a week or so! (You can always check out the weather here through the link  http://www.accuweather.com/en-us/pt/lisboa/sintra/forecast.aspx  ). The new supporting wall before it was painted We have started this year with many improvement activities.  First came the new supporting wall for the level of the internet house.  The November rains and the roots of ...

This summer Casa do Valle had a little sister, Casa da Vista!  In the bottom of the property, with its own entrance, 3 double rooms and a suite with a kitchenette was raised from the wilderness of bambu, fig- and olive trees, and lots of other things growing wild. The new 'Casa da Vista' (= 'house with the view') at the bottom of the property has indeed great views! Many, many years ago we built the house of Casa do Valle because my husband wanted a garage.  And below that garage the original 4 rooms were built within the structure that we needed to have to have that garage on street level.  The rooms there were made to host my family when they come from Finland to Portugal - so that they could feel at ease, have their own space and  this way stay as long as they wanted.  Then a friend who had a B&B suggested we start renting the rooms out.  We did and loved the activity!  The garage had to go, we remodelled the rooms and eventually ended up...

Here are three pictures - before, during and after. Unfortunately, even the 'after' picture will need to become a 'before' picture. Why? The work has just started, and a lot work needs to go in, still. SO, BEFORE: DURING: and AFTER: These pictures have been taken from the newer part of the ground. Well, from the part that we acquired after the main house's grounds, and is the part that we have much slower started to take care of. Actually, 'take care of' is not the correct term here. We have been taken care of the ground and this is the reason of the 'Before' picture. The heeps of green you see are branches, cuttings, and other garden trash accumulated as the older fruit trees were pruned and wild bushes cut. That and the fast growing Morning Glories and other plants covering the garden trash under a blanket of green and blue and orange. Here, too, the undesirable plants grow faster than the rest... But it has been a blessing, in a way; th...

Two days ago I received a mail from the BedandBreakfast.com offices to inform us that Casa do Valle had been awarded the Best of Portugal Award ! We had been selected based upon 'excellent reviews posted by your guests during the past year'. The BedandBreakfast.com Awards are based on both qualitative and quantitative analysis. So I thank You - all of you who have written a review for us! And please, keep writing! The same day I noticed that we had jumped to 1st place again on TripAdvisor in the category of Bed and Breakfasts of Sintra. Seen that we are still quite young in the business, that was extremely good news! Here at Casa do Valle we read carefully all the reviews we get. We take them seriously and anything that we catch as an 'iffy' we try to correct. We have learned a lot reading through those comments, changed things, continued others. We especially love it when guests who are still here come to us and tell us they would like something different...

Good Friday was the hardest day of my life as far as customer service. I know that no matter what, you are to be cheerful and efficient. You are to put your personal affairs and emotions to the background and be all you should be to provide the best service to your clients, to make them feel at home and cared for. But it was really difficult, and I am afraid I failed: I burst into tears when a young Brazilian couple wanted to settle their bill and cut a Swedish couple short when they asked me how the Portuguese celebrate Easter. For this I apologize now publically. Good Friday was one of the hardest days of my life in general - it was the day I held Zoe's head on my lap while she slept away to her eternal sleep as her kidneys stopped working due to the leishmanhose disease that had bothered her for 2 years. Many of our guests remember Zoe - the gentle porcelain Great Dane of 4. She loved attention and company. She loved walks on the beach and playing with Ruben ...

The last 10 days we have had more of a traditional autumn weather: showers at night and in the morning, afternoon temperatures are about 15 degrees, but they feel colder because of the wind. The umbrellas in the rooms are being used or at least taken for walks as the guests leave for dinner. In some rooms the heaters are on. But the evidence of the earlier warm weeks are clear: I bought beautiful, national strawberries at the supermarket for breakfast today (our strawberry season is March-June)! This is the time when I get excited about next spring! My husband brought new hammocks from Brasil to place in the garden. I found a wonderful rug to place on the floor next to the sofa outside - I also found some wonderful textiles to make new pillows for the garden. But I am also excited about the autumn. Candles and lanterns are placed and lit in the evenings. As it is the nut season, we have placed complimentary mixed nuts (and a nut-cracker) with port wine in the rooms to welcome our ...

For the first time our palm tree has two flowers at the same time! Usually in the fall we have the beautiful cascading purple flowers in one tree or the other but never two in one! They are truly beautiful and we feel lucky to have them. This has also been an extraordinary year for fruit. I will add a picture to show the abundance of pears: the heavy branches are nearly sweeping the ground. This weekend will certainly be jam-making time. Even our small apple trees are so full of apples for their size that the branches are bent to the ground. The fig trees are also promising a lot, lots of fruit to come - for those though we just have to wait another week or two. It is obvious that fall is getting closer. It is darker in the mornings and more humid at nights. The mornings now often have a gray mist hanging over the mountain until about 9 am, and in town there are some vines with a few red leaves already. Yet the temperature has been about 26-28º in the afternoons and our swimmin...