Pina River

Hi Fae. Lovely to hear from you. Well, we are still here and life has evolved in interesting ways. Our water harvesting system has evolved tremendously since I wrote that post. Our olive trees and vines have increased dramatically in productiveness and we have planted a lot of fruit trees and other trees. Where are you and what are your plans ?

sorry thats dot com of course! pinnih@gmail.com

Hi Adam. Wow thanks for painting that beautiful image of your new place! I love it! Well in my experience what you are looking for you could defo's find around here where we are. There is a lovely piece of land near is actually that has everything you have mentioned plus a ruin, 2 hectares, for 13k if i remember correctly. iys a lush fertile piece of land. well, right now it looks quite dry of course but it has quite a few orange trees that are doing fine without irrigation which tells you something. it has at least one big well. there are two things that people might not like. one is that access is difficult the last 50m.(yes fifty meters). the owner says its possible to get the municipality to sort that out but looks tricky to me. but what do i know?! nothing a jcb couldnt sort out. and anyway our own access is way further from our barn than that. the wheel barrow is our best friend! the other thing is that you can see the shepherd(our neighbour)s whole house and outbuildings from the land. he kind of overlooks a lot of it. for some people that could be a plus cos its quite remote so its nice to have other people around. him and his wife have a flock of about 100 milk sheep. they are very nice people. good neighbours. but for some people the proximity might be too much. anyway if it sounds like it could be interesting for you send me an email on pinnih@gmail
cim and i will put you in touch with the people mediating for the owner. they might have other stuff you are interested in too. send me a message here too to let me know if you email me so it doesnt get lost in my spam.. best wishes. pin

Hi Adam. I cant say for sure what the legalities are but so far there seems to be no problem with people living on their land in anything they like. Hopefully this continues. If you give me an idea of what kind of land you are looking for and what your budget is i may be able to put you in touch with people who know of land for sale that is not advertised on the internet.
Please also give me a brief description of what you intend.to do with your land. What are your permaculture  interests?
pin

Hi Adam
Thats great news! Be in touch closer to the time and maybe we can meet up.
best best
pina

Hi Jason

In our experience, the internet connection is great. We have a 2 year unlimited download contract with a company called NOS for 25 euros a month. The connection is reliable and fast enough for us. Yes, you could run an online business here.

Stay in touch and let us know if you're in the area.

Best regards
pina

Hi Blaze.

Yes there are markets where you can buy produce.
I don't know how you would make a living, only you can answer that.
Some pieces of land have wells and others don't.
It is easy to buy land as an EU citizen.
I am not sure why you are asking about Spanish, do you mean Portuguese?

thanks
pina

Dear friends

We live in a beautiful and wild part of inland central Portugal, near the Spanish border. Our local village is the (in Portugal, famous) village of Monsanto (I know!)

Our quinta (farm) is 2 hectares with 40 olives, 100 vines, figs, pear, apple, peach, persimmon, orange, and mulberry trees. For us this is a veritable paradise. There is lots of water (especially if you practice sound water-harvesting and storage techniques) and the weather is very mild.
Summer is baking hot (we love it!) and christmas is usually sunny and warm.

The remaining local Portuguese people are over-whelmingly friendly and welcoming. We are often almost moved to tears by their open heartedness, I kid you not! The problem is that most of them are elderly (albeit very actively still farming) and the land around us is slowly being abandoned as the population steadily declines.
This is where you come in!

If you are looking for a simple life in a raw and wild landscape where food grows in abundance and you can live in peace and quiet, then please come and visit our area. We are in desperate need of people who are committed to land restoration practices and who interested in finally walking their talk.

I realised the other day that to be happy here you have to enoy, no, even more, LOVE the physical labour that subsistence farming actually is. For us, this is a constant source of satisfaction, contentment and a meaningful life. We love it here and so do the other lucky souls who have found themselves living around this majestic mountain of Monsanto.

Because of its remoteness, and its wildness, there are not many people living here and that means that land is still affordable. You can still buy land with fruit trees, water, and a ruin for a very affordable price. 20k euros will get you a long way towards buying a piece of land that will support all your needs. As more and more foreigners move to our area (even here it is slowly happening) the local people realise that people actually want to come and live here (as opposed to all leaving to go to the cities) and some of them come forward with land for sale. Their prices are realistic and I think this is a unique window of opportunity for those of us who don't have untold amounts of money, to buy land and start a new life right here in Europe.

If you are already thinking of coming to Portugal to look for a piece of land then please take a few days to come and visit our area. I can put you in touch with people who are helping locals sell their land.
We need more permaculturists. Is that you?!!

Obrigado pelo sua atencao.
love pina
FB: the singing quinta

Calling all permaculture enthusiasts..

We live around the sacred mountain of Monsanto in the district of Castelo Branco, in central Portugal. There is a lot of land that needs tender loving care and we need people to come and live here who want to practice soil rehabilitation, reforestation, and self-sufficient life-styles.

There is land for sale for affordable prices. All different sizes and situations. If you are genuinely interested in putting your permaculture enthusiasm to work, please consider coming to see whats here.

best wishes
yours
pina

You can just arrive and buy. They are closed over lunch. Go to the reception and they will explain where the tree nursery is. Don't forget: NO FRUIT TREES.. For fruit trees, the best nursery we have found is the one in Lardosa (M. Vos)