CASA DO VALLE

My husband loves books and pictures of Sintra way back. Buildings in their glory, people dressed in old fashioned clothing - but mainly he likes the ones where you see the way the city was laid out - and maps. In many pictures, from afar, you can see the whole mountain very bare, almost treeless - but in the closeups you can see some trees and bushes and vegetation. And fountains. The trees have come and gone according to fires and cutting - the most glorious gardens and parks we have now have been planted specifically by Kings and famous men who chose to establish themselves here. The climate was perfect for the near tropical vegetation - and the water was plenty. There is plenty of water in the mountain and all of the habitants of Sintra throughout the years have known to channel it to serve their purpose, be it a public bath house or gardening; or simply a place where the citizens could come to collect water when there was not proper canalization. Many of the fountains no l...

In the last few months I have blogged very little. Not that there is nothing to say, quite the contrary - I have been really busy, both at work and on holidays. And there are plenty of new things coming along and happening. Some things are still in the developmental stage and it is too early to speak about them but some are coming right out wanting to be mentioned... This last year was a good year to us. We built very few new things but were improving a lot: new garden furniture, new fruit trees planted, new pillows, some new rugs and curtains, new blankets, new dishes, ... We painted some walls, inside and out. In the marketing side, we changed our site some, and started working with some agencies. A notable change was starting to work with A Vida é Bela and later the Smartbox - both are gift voucher companies, and both have picked up nicely. They have changed our strategies a bit, too, as they have changed our clientèle, especially during the winter months, to more national from...

For a few years I was very fortunate to have the task of driving my husband's 100-year+ old grandma through Sintra; from her place to ours and back. She always wanted me to go very slowly, as she rarely traveled in the car, so she could see all the places she used to walk by, live in and work at. She would tell me stories about how Sintra used to be, what it looked like, and of course how it has changed. One of her favorite topics was the traffic. She said she remembered when there was only 1 car in Sintra, when taxis were horse-drawn carriages, when the tram was the major transportation in to the Historical Center (now it no longer comes this far), then called just 'Vila'. She told me how you had to have a license to get into Vila by any form of transportation: there was an area in the entrance to the town, in Lourel, where people had to place their goods in public or hired horse-drawn trucks to bring them into town. Interesting! It still would be nice. A few year...

While our site is being translated into one more language, it is experiencing some growing pains - sorry for that. It seems my browser (Netscape) is tougher to get it right than the more common ones. Anyway, while the web-guys are working on that, a new special package has been created. It seems especially appropriate now to get ready for the busy holiday season - and maybe even after it to unwind. It is called: SPOIL YOURS ELF from head to toe ! The feet and the head are places that when massaged can relax the whole body. That is the idea. The package has two different massages combined, one to the head, the other to the feet, totaling about an hour of bliss. The massage on the feet is reflexology , a therapy that consists of massaging, stimulating and pressing points of our feet where our different organs have their counterpoints, producing not only a deep effect of relaxation but also a relief of symptoms of an illness. This massage can be either combined with a facial mass...

The other day I accompanied my husband to a meeting 385 kms away from Sintra, to Trancoso in the 'Beira Interior'. We left at 6 am, I spent an hour in town while he was in the meeting, we drove back and stopped in another town on the way where he had another meeting, we stopped for lunch and were back in Sintra by 4 pm. These 800+ kms were leisurely passed with all the stopping in 10 hours. Yes, the motorways in Portugal are great! There is a crisis in Portugal, but I have full faith that all will turn out well. All of these motorways going through remote areas have guaranteed something: businesses are all over our country, not only in the big cities (and this includes tourism!). The roads enable good and efficient transportation of raw materials as well as ready products, linking the interior to the coast, North to South - and of course to Center, our region. As we were driving, I was marveled by the green - the vast forests (even after the fires of the last years);...

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...

This was the first morning this autumn that when I left for my morning walk with Pandora, I put a reflector on both of my legs under the knee. Pandora's pink bandana was also changed to a reflecting collar, to be on the safe side. It wasn't dark at 7:15, but the light was not strong anymore. No socks were necessary but I wore a long-sleeved t-shirt to keep off the cool, humid morning air of my chest. I have gotten addicted to these morning walks. As I write this, Pandora is a 7 month-old Great Dane full of energy. Initially I thought that these walks would ware her out and she would stay calmer for a longer period. But who wore out was I. Then I got into a better shape, and I told myself that I would waste her energy and it would magically transfer to me, as I felt energized after the walks. Wrong again. Yes, I get energized but so does she. Now both of us look forward to our walks with equal eagerness, which is easy enough to comprehend. Sintra is magical, ESPECIALLY in the mo...