Outdoor Area
Life can get complicated, crazy and exhausting sometimes, but more than anything, life is for living. If you feel like you need a break, or that you want to recapture your zest for life, you’re certainly not the only one. These are strange times for us all! But whether it’s the need to relax and rest, discover and experience something new, recuperate from pressure at work or from a feeling of general burnout and exhaustion, or a combination of it all, we have created the perfect space for you to pause, wind down, contemplate, recharge, and figure out what really matters. We’ve filled Casa do Moinho with the best love and care that nature has to offer.
We have combined our entire lifetimes of experience to create an environment in the soothing Portuguese countryside that’s purpose-built for nurturing inner peace and promoting positive growth. In an atmosphere designed for calm and tranquillity, and with the pure wonder of nature itself, we offer you the tools to tap into your resilience and learn new skills.
If you want to reconnect with yourself and with nature, develop skills for managing work-related and other types of pressure, learn about sustainable agriculture, experience a traditional rural environment, or if you’re just crying out for some freshly grown food and a change of scenery (and the scenery is beautiful, we promise), have a look at what we offer and please reach out to us if you’re interested in joining us for a while. We’re very proud of what we’ve built here, and we absolutely love to share it.
Striking a Balance
We are dedicated advocates of ‘letting nature do its thing’, and we believe that with just the right balance of human intervention and nature’s initiative, the land will deliver all of the spiritual and health wonders one can hope for. It is also an environment conducive to work or self-exploration in a comfortable facility. Everything we do at Casa do Moinho is done for the benefit of nature and its inhabitants, and nature appreciates it. We stay away from anything artificial indoors and out. We are keeping large areas of the property wild, as it helps to attract wildlife and biodiversity.
Keeping it Natural and Minimalist
While the Quinta is perfectly set up to offer a warm and very comfortable environment to its guests, we do everything we can to help reduce our footprint and assist our land to become resilient, making it a showcase for a true rural experience. Hence we use natural materials, we spray no chemicals on the land, the property has efficient water conservation, and renewable energy. We even use some watering techniques from Roman times that help to maximise water efficiency.
Connection is Key
We believe that connection is the best way to cultivate happiness and move forward in all walks of life. We’re not talking about Wifi or internet connection. We’re talking about connecting with nature, with our passions, and with our inner energies so we can learn to grow and progress in a way that nurtures us, and the world around us as well.
Rural Awareness
Casa do Moinho is also a farm and was set up to restore an abandoned piece of land that came with a run-down water mill. It now produces wholly organic food that we then serve to our guests. Using regenerative farming principles, we have nurtured the old and planted anew in our orchards, olive groves, vineyard, vegetable garden, and our fields and pasture. All kinds of small-scale agricultural activities and organic and biodynamic experiments take place on the land. Mechanisation is kept at a minimum, as we favour low-tech, traditional land husbandry methods.
About Your Hosts
Pascale
Hello, my name is Pascale. I coordinate Casa do Moinho's activities. I am a seasoned, third-culture expatriate who lived in the Asia-Pacific and North American regions for over 25 years. My first passion was is my career in psychology. I worked in various settings in big cities like Hong Kong and Tokyo and acquired vast experience in helping my urban city clients recover from their burnout, stress, and life changes. However, I was born in a small village surrounded by farms, and I grew up in an organic garden. I always kept that connection to nature, as this helped me understand, from an early age, the beneficial influence that the countryside and nature-based activities have on our nervous system. I designed all my professional practices to tap into the calming yet energising effect of nature and its benefit on human health. That's how I came to Portugal in 2018 and created a rural retreat.
I was a competitive athlete in my youth, which furthered my interest in matters of health and wellness. A severe back injury led me to practice restorative yoga and zen meditation while I was still a teen. I have carried these practices for over 3 decades and I am now a certified yoga therapist and mindfulness teacher. I am strongly opinionated about the ravages of commercial spirituality, competitive yoga and McMindfulness and I believe that body and mind practices are naturally supported by intentional immersions into our natural habitat.
While I used to spend most of my spare time on horseback or climbing rock faces, I am now dedicating my energies to nursing our old vineyard and olive groves back to health, following permaculture and bio-dynamic principles, which I learned as a young adult in Australia. In the spirit of shinrin-yoku, I am now recreating a (food) forest at Casa do Moinho for our guests’ enjoyment. And why not? I have since been certified in Agricultural Management, which helps me coordinate Casa do Moinho’s rural activities to the highest professional standards.
Jean Louis
Jean-Louis co-manages Casa do Moinho's executive coaching activities. He is a French national who worked and lived across five continents. He has a very rich industry experience and a strong corporate background in leadership and executive positions. For over 25 years, he created value for corporations and medium-size companies by launching and developing new ventures, accompanying change processes, enhancing leadership effectiveness, and successfully coaching and managing high-performing teams. He has a wealth of experience in multicultural leadership, product development know-how, and strong expertise in managing complex projects. After a long and successful career as a specialist in Sales, Marketing, and Business Development, Jean-Louis decided to share his experience and become a business coach.
He then trained as a professional business coach and is a WABC’s Registered Corporate Coach™ (RCC™) since 2015. He applies his passion for developing leaders and empowering talents to drive performance through personal development and by creating the conditions to achieve both personal and organisational change, unleash potential, and exceed a coachee's own expectations.
In his spare time, you’ll see him bring all kinds of improvements to Casa do Moinho, the perfect terrain for his experimental and experiential approach to giving back to the land. For more than two decades, he would travel long haul distances up to 4 times a month. He is keenly aware of his astronomical carbon footprint and this may explain his passion for nursing the vineyard with biodynamic principles and planting 600 trees, 200 bush trees and thousands of perennials in less than 2 years! (He is only just starting.....)
Our Animals
We have a multitude of animals on the property, including dogs, Oskar and Peaches, the cat, Stark, sheep, ducks, rabbits, and various flocks of birds. They are all socialised and, yes!, very affectionate and curious about visitors. They love to play and have a seriously cute approach to drawing you in the here and now through their therapeutic presence.
