“What art does — maybe what it does most completely — is tell us, make us feel that what we think we know, we don’t. There are whole worlds around us that we’ve never glimpsed.” Greil Marcus — Tuesday May 19th — —

The idea is to die young as late as possible. — Ashley Montagu — Tuesday May 19th — —

I love listening. It is one of the only spaces where you can be still and moved at the same time. — Nayyirah Waheed — Tuesday May 19th — —

Casas Caiadas

The Casas Caiadas or ‘Whitewashed Houses’ project, is an extraordinary new rural tourist estate in the Arraiolos region, north of Évora, which recently was brought to our attention. The project which opened its doors at the beginning 2015, consists of three independent houses plus a support house, fully restored from a core of old water mills, in the heart of the Alentejo region. The young couple behind Casas Caiadas, Paula and Mario, found in this piece of Alentejo surrounded by centennial olive trees, stone walls and menhirs, the ideal place to restore the traditional whitewashed houses and share its beauty with people from all over the world. They found in architect Luís Pereira Miguel the right partner for the project, which after it was finished in October of last year, has been acknowledged nationally and internationally: having been nominated for the Vasco Vilalva Award, attributed by Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian; and has been published in the book ‘Portuguese Restored Houses’.

Paula and Mario’s idea is to offer all the facilities required for an unforgettable stay, keeping always in mind independence and maximum privacy of who chooses to settle into the small ‘village’: besides breakfast and daily cleaning, it’s as if you were alone in the world, despite the fact that the small village of Sabugueiro is located a little over a kilometer away…

For families that enjoy spending some days in a very pure, very preserved, rural atmosphere, Casas Caiadas offer three houses. The largest one consists of a living room and dining room, a kitchen and a bathroom: the meeting place per excellence, very welcoming, where handicraft objects combine with great elegance with furniture and minimalist pieces of design. In this house, besides every morning breakfasts, local dishes may be prepared at all meals by a cook – hosted families may decide, each day, if they wish for one or two meals be prepared for them, or if they prefer to prepare them themselves.

The other two houses are, respectively, a suite installed in a stone house and a house with more rooms: a suite, meaning room and a  bathroom, and two bedrooms with a sharing bathroom. On land with a gentle slope towards south, the beach-like swimming pool installed between an ancient waterway of the mills maintains its most natural form.

Make sure to visit this extraordinary gem which has everything to offer to nature enthousiast, just as lovers of cultural and historical heritage – we can’t wait to return to Portugal once more!

For more information and to book see here.