About The Retreat
We welcome you to join us for a truly immersive healing experience, deep in the heart of the Portuguese wilderness.
Spend a week practicing yoga in our wooden and glass shala floating above the valley, receiving massage and acupuncture treatments, walking in pine forests, swimming in natural river pools, breathe pure mountain air and eating delicious nutritious food.
Stay in one of the beautifully restored stone cottages, Soulpads or in a Tipi. Our retreat home is perfect for those in need of a break, rest and relaxation. We are surrounded by nature and forests, peace and tranquility – the perfect ingredients to restore your body and mind.
The combination of good food and sleep, clean mountain air and water, therapeutic massage and acupuncture, hill walking and river swimming, all create a highly restorative context in which to begin, or to deepen, your yoga practice.
Soulfully reconnect with our planet and with your own body. This warm invitation to deepen your love affair with yoga, is open for everyone, travelling alone or with friends, new to yoga or practicing for decades.
Retreat Weeks for 2023
Spaciousness with Vonetta
Dates
Feb 20, 2023 – Feb 25, 2023
Mar 20, 2023 – Mar 25, 2023
Apr 10, 2023 – Apr 15, 2023
Body, space, motion, stillness: practice joy with us, with the trees, the rivers, the wildlife.
Together we will explore elemental energies which influence our perception of our selves and our well-being within the context of yoga asana, influenced by ashtanga vinyasa yoga, dynamic and restorative practice. Supported by harmonising treatments and nourishing food, immersed deep in the heart of nature.
Come and share time with us in this little wilderness and feel, elemental, let’s rewild ourselves and raise our Spirits.
Yoga
You will be safely and physically challenged. Please do not worry about being “good” enough. Or flexible or thin enough. Or whatever enough. We prefer to think you are perfect just as you are. Whatever your capability or experience may be, you are truly welcome. It might be your first yoga retreat, perhaps your first yoga class, or maybe you’ve been practicing regularly for decades.
The very meaning of the word Yoga, is union. A daily invitation to explore the possibility of what our bodies can do and what they can show us, about ourselves and the world we perceive around us. A wonderful journey of self enquiry and discovery.
A retreat here is an invitation to deepen the love affair. With yoga and with yourself. Removed from the normal stresses and responsibilities of life, surrounded by the stunning wilderness of the Portuguese forests, nurture yourself, without distraction.
Be romanced into yoga, free from intimidating complex drills, open slowly, sweetly, squeeze and savour all the juice out of your practice and digest every drop of the nutrients.
Be taken inward to connect with the harmonious rhythm of your breathing and from this rhythm into your body. Broaden, lengthen and soften into each asana, into your day, into your week and into your life. The indulgent luxury of time loosens and dissolves nervous tension. From this calm space, a confidence in ourselves and our personal experience grows.
Return home with a stronger desire to cultivate a personal practice that encourages a little more contentment and ease in your world.
Bend, stretch, ground, bind, flow, cry, invert, balance, fold, open, relax, tuck, twist, release, close, experience silence, contemplate, walk, broaden, sing, dance, digest, taste, consolidate, stand, swim, sit, lengthen, soften, calm, laugh, live, love, lie down.
Cuisine
Inspired by Ayurveda, our daily menus at Vale de Moses are always colourful, easy to digest and soul satisfying. Enjoy three tasty and nutritious meals every day, cooked from fresh local ingredients, low in salt and rich in home grown herbs and salads.
You will not go hungry on this retreat, you will be nourished and fed! We are well versed in catering for vegans and for those with special dietary requirements.
Accommodation
Soulpads
There are also delightful Soulpad belle tents with single, double or twin mahogany beds, drawers, carpets, electricity, hot water bottles, blankets, towels, mosquito nets and sun loungers, hammocks and solar outside. These are located in a quiet valley with the best views of the sunsets and stars at night.
Moses Cottage
Our guest cottage sleeps 3 and is surrounded by olive trees and newly planted fruit orchards. Inside it is open plan (no internal doors) over 3 storeys with a single bed on the mezzanine over the kitchen, a single bed on the ground floor, and twin beds on the first floor. Each have comfy mattress toppers for a deep sleep.
The bathroom is in the small building on the right, which used to be the kitchen and houses a new shower and a dry toilet. The fully equipped kitchen is perfect for early morning and night time teas.
Just below the cottage, there is a plunge pool fed from the cold running stream, essential for cooling off in the heat of the summer retreats. There are also a couple of natural pools in the streams for daily swimming (weather permitting).
Monastic Adega
The Adega is the name of the place where the Portuguese make their wine. We’ve restored it into a simple monastic living space. Sleeps 3, with singles on the ground floor, a mezzanine and in a tiny room at the top (fondly named the Ninja Suite). Built into the mountainside, with access up stone carved steps, right next to one of the rivers running through Vale de Moses. We added electricity in order to light the rooms more safely than candles in the summer.
The Adega is a cosy place to sleep nestled into the rock, with lovely views down the valley, and with what our guests often describe as a timeless quality. Outside is a shower in the old grape pressing tank with water solar heated from an ancient Moorish water mine up the valley. On the olive terrace below is a wooden cabin wc and wash room. You are also welcome to use any of our other bath and shower rooms too as well as the kitchen in the Moses guest cottage round the corner.
It is our smallest stone cottage and the perfect place to “unplug” and rest deeply to the soundscape of the forest, the running water in the stream below and the heart beat of the mountain. Bring a torch.
What past guests have said
“Vale de Moses is magic!! Being in nature all day, having great yoga practice, eating delicious food and hanging out with new friends. All this made Vale de Moses an unforgettable experience! I will keep all the beautiful memories of this wonderful week with me for a very long time. Andrew, Vonetta, their grown up children and all their team are lovely people and truly inspiring!”. Maren, Germany
”I cannot recommend a retreat at Vale de Moses highly enough! Without a doubt the most relaxing and inspirational holiday we have been on. There were so many memorable parts…the setting in the forest & doing yoga in the beautiful shala with the sound of the river and birds, the silent morning walks, the ayurvedic and delicious food everyday, the amazing treatments and acupuncture, all the lovely people including the perfect hosts the Winter family, Tashi, Oli, Katherine & Jude. Anyone looking to get away from it all and reconnect with your self and nature should come to this retreat. We will definitely be back!.” Jordan, Brighton
”Vale de Moses is a living example of harmony between people, nature and the land. Andy and Vonetta have created a space that allows people to enter into that harmony in comfort and joy. My soul is still captured by that place; may it never recover! We were invited to share in the incredible food that was offered for both body and soul. The transformation and revitalization were profound and long lasting. Built on love, respect and ultimately trust, this was truly a life-changing experience. Much gratefulness to you both for your work!.” Georg, Saudia Arabia
What to pack
Pack Light. Remember that whatever you bring down the mountainside to Vale de Moses, you’ll have to take up again at the end of your stay. We live on the side of a very steep, deep and pretty valley. We recommend the following:
– A good pair of walking shoes or trainers
– Swimming costume
– Water bottle to rehydrate regularly
– Warm jumper
– A raincoat in Spring and Autumn
– A good torch, as the paths at night, unless moonlit, are dark!
– For your yoga practice comfortable, soft stretchy clothing is all you need. We provide yoga mats and cotton towels, although you are welcome to bring your own
– In summer sun tan lotion, and mosquito repellent in the Autumn. Please use the simplest, most natural version you can find of these and other washing products. You’ll be in and out of the rivers, and the water from your showers goes directly to irrigate orchard trees and shrubs. We have a range of natural soaps, shampoos and toothpaste to buy
How to get here
Arrive: Fly into Lisbon or Porto in time to take the Sunday afternoon coach from Lisbon (1.30pm) or Porto (4.30pm), to our local town of Oleiros, where we will pick everyone up by car on arrival. Fly in early if you can and enjoy a night or 2 in either of those charming cities before heading up to see us on Sunday. Have a read of the Soul Seed Travel guide to Portugal for recommendations.
Coach timetable, prices and tickets on the Rede Expressos website. We’ll email all guests the week before arrival so if you’d like, you can contact each other to meet in Lisbon or Porto before travelling up to the forest together.
The trip from Porto has 2 changes, Coimbra and Sertã, with a chance at each for a tea and loo break. The coach from Lisbon has one short loo break half way at Tomar.
Depart: Return coach is either 8am or 3pm to Lisbon or 8am to Porto the following Saturday. Again, stay another night in Portugal if you can before flying home Sunday. You can buy your coach tickets in advance online or 15 minutes before you board.
Driving: Check in from 5pm Sunday afternoon. From Lisbon – A1 north to A23 turn off. A23 to Abrantes, Villa de Rei turnoff. N2 to Sertã. Sertã to Oleiros. Oleiros to village of Amieira. From Porto – A1 south to Coimbra, A13 to Tomar, IC8 to Serta, Serta to Oleiros to Amieira. Good signposting throughout, but a SatNav with latest Portuguese new road map will help. The drive from both Lisbon and Porto with breaks is about 2.5 hours. Google map coordinates 39.98336, -7.917524. Check out by 2pm the following Saturday.
Retreat Price in Euros
Shared space in 4 bed stone Moses Cottage, 3 bed stone Adega Cottage or private Single SoulPad – 1,050€ per person
Private Double/Twin SoulPad for single occupancy – 1,400€ per person
Private Double/Twin SoulPad for double occupancy – 1,960€ for 2 people
Includes
- 6 morning yoga posture practices
- 3 afternoon workshops
- 2 morning guided forest walks
- 90 minute body harmonising treatment, with additional treatments available for 90€
- 7 nights accommodation in stone cottages or SoulPad belle tents
- 3 freshly prepared, nourishing vegan/vegetarian meals daily
- Transportation to and from Oleiros
Does not include
* Flights
* Coach to and from Lisbon or Porto (25€)
Optional activities
* Daily walking, hiking and cycling routes through surrounding hills and forests
* Swimming in natural pools in the two rivers that run through the valley
* Climbing trips (additional cost with a Swiss climber living in the village above)
Booking
Fill in the form to make an enquiry or booking and receive a complimentary massage when you book through Soul Seed Travel. You can also contact the team direct on retreats@soulseedmedia.com if you have any questions.
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