Casa Neroli

How long did we think this project was going to take? We had already read about the, shall we say, relaxed way or working and in fact had seem this in trying to arrange visits to the estate agents. We had also in our googling sessions come across a couple of really excellent websites, Gekkoportugal at www.gekkoportugal.com and The Overseas Guide Company – Portugal at www.portugalbuyingguide.com that gave us some wonderful information and set our expectations. We also would like to complete the project, if possible without having to borrow, so whilst we had some savings we would need some time to get the total amount together. Oh! That’s a point how much are we going to spend? We hadn’t thought too much about that.

So arbitrarily we said well let’s say 10 years, that gives us 3 years to hunt around, to find the best location, and maybe give us something to focus on when having a holiday rather than just seeing the sights. Then maybe another 4 years for the purchase and sorting out any permission we might need, then 3 more to get any building or fixing up done, and 10 is a nice round number and would give us some time.

The one thing we were not going to do was to rush into anything; we would take the Portuguese way and take our time. Whatever happened we were going to enjoy our first exploratory and not buy anything, it was just to see if this is something we could if we wanted to do.

So what were we going to do in the 4 days we had, just drive around? Do they have estate agents? How does the process work? We really didn’t have much of a clue. So back on the good old’ computer and get Google a Googling. Managed to track down a couple of Estate Agents that either were or at least spoke reasonable English, as we didn’t speak any Portuguese and arranged to meet up whilst there. It was all very strange, everything is very laid back and appointments don’t seem to be needed like they are in the UK.

Now whilst this was all part of the experience we were looking for, getting away from the “instant gratification” society that exists here and creating something far more relaxed, when it was suddenly there in your face, it was just really weird!

As we lead up to the August period the plan evolved even more, the decision was that we would drive, we couldn’t go until the October half term as Teresa is in education. It was a long way for just a week, we could only afford a week off work, but we could take a couple of days driving down and look around France and Spain on the way, just to be sure Portugal was right. If we were to take 2 days down then that would be two days back so 4 days driving, if we go Saturday that would mean we could get 4 days looking around and still get back by the following weekend, well it would be a start.

We are lucky in the fact we only live 5 minutes from Newhaven which has a car ferry that runs twice a day to Dieppe. After a quick visit to LD lines website (ferry operator) the ferry was booked. A 10:00 pm (UK time) crossing on the Friday would get us Dieppe at about 3:00am (French time), there is an hour’s difference returning the following Saturday on the 6:00pm which would get us back to Newhaven at 9:00pm allowing for the time difference, 5 minutes drive home, indoors by 9:30pm roughly. Brilliant!

Just need somewhere to sleep now. After a few hours on Google, finding somewhere that looked nice, wasn’t too expensive and was in the central area, the decision was the Hotel Amoras in Proença-a-Nova, the dates where available. Next bit done! The last bit for the journey down and back was how far would we get, this we just didn’t have a clue, so as it was the October/November time period, we felt we should be able to find somewhere en route, may be just for ease and cost we would try the Formula 1 chain, cheap and cheerful, but hopefully OK.

This was a first for us, doing something not planned.

For a number of years we had enjoyed 3 or 4 holidays a year and always liked to have the next one booked or at least arranged before completing the one we were on. It was during the early part of 2011 whilst looking forward to our August trip to the east coast of the USA we were struggling with where we would like to go on our next holiday, hopefully later in the year. Many ideas and places were discussed, but neither of us was sold on any of the ideas.

Then in one of our many discussions it was suggested, well what about “A Place in the Sun” for us? Could we do it? Well maybe we could take the first stage and without making any large commitments, we could perhaps have a holiday in Portugal and at least see if we still like it, after all it had been a number of years since we had been there, maybe we wouldn’t like it.

It was agreed.

So where in Portugal? It’s a big country. What sort of area would we like, Touristy, Rural or Urban? Are we still right to go for Portugal? There were so many basic questions which we needed the answers too, but how to resolve. Where do we start? We had to start somewhere, one thing we did know was we didn’t want the Algarve. Whilst it was that area that drew us to Portugal we knew we didn’t want to be in such a  touristy area and being honest we knew we wouldn’t be able to afford that area either. We still wanted the warmth and as much sun as possible, so maybe not the North, whilst very beautiful it is very green and therefore very liable to wetter conditions, so that left us with the middle bit. So let’s start there, in fact let’s go right for slap bang in the middle and work our way out in all directions.

The one thing we did know was that we wanted some space not too much and as many fruit trees as possible. It had always been Teresa’s dream to have her own Lemon’s and Orange’s growing in her garden.

Sounds like we have a plan!

During 2010 we discussed the idea over and over; in fact probably most Sundays whilst watching “A Place in the Sun” we evaluated a lot of different countries during this period, but always seemed to come back to Portugal. It never progressed, it was just an idea and people like us don’t do these sorts of things.