Unique Stone Sculpting & Yoga Retreat

Channel your artistry and creativity on this unique retreat combining stone sculpting workshops and yoga sessions, all amidst beautiful Portuguese landscapes.

If you are looking for a therapeutic and satisfying activity, the art of stone sculpting is for you! Through daily lessons in the instructor’s garden, you will develop and master your stone sculpting skills, and create your own masterpiece -- from top-notch local materials -- to take home with you. Observing, creating, and carving your own soapstone piece of art will make you take pride in the sculptor that lies within you.

Blend your stone sculpting workshops with daily yoga sessions in a stunning open-air Shala, unwind at the end of each day with some local wine, and you'll leave this artistic retreat feeling enriched and rejuvenated!

These laidback 7 days will fly by at this magical eco-retreat in southern Portugal's Alentejo region!

• Daily yoga sessions in an open-air Shala in the woods
• Four soapstone sculpting workshops
• Healthy brunches and dinners; vegetarians happily accommodated
• One glass of wine with each dinner
• Ample free time
• Plenty of optional activities (for an additional cost)

What will the soapstone sculpting program be like?

​During the soapstone sculpting workshop, you will find a nice assortment of soapstone at the studio.  You should take your time when choosing your stone. It is a very emotional moment and fundamental for the following sculpting process itself. During the duration of the workshop, you will enter into deep interaction with “your” stone. The combination of observing, perceiving, and creating with the use of your own hands will lead you to great emotional satisfaction. The working process includes various techniques of sculpting, sawing, shaping, grinding, and polishing.

Meet the Artist:

Peggy was born in Germany and lived a bit all over the world. When she discovered Alentejo, she immediately fell in love with this region.  She has her own art studio in a beautiful villa surrounded by vineyards where the workshops will take place. She has run numerous workshops and exhibitions in Germany, Portugal, Rwanda, and the Antilles. Her other passion is winemaking and she personally curates her own vineyards and produces her own wine.

We love her sense of humor and wittiness!

Yoga: Find your sense of calm with daily yoga sessions in the open-air Shala in the woods. The 75-minute yoga sessions are led by Nina, a certified instructor who will tailor the classes to each person’s ability - so everybody is welcome, from beginners to pros! Classes will mix different yoga styles.

Food and wine play an important role in this unique stone sculpting and yoga retreat!

Great food: You will enjoy healthy meals onsite, freshly prepared using exclusively fresh, local, organic, and seasonal products (most meals are vegetarian, too!). Menus change with each retreat, but here’s a sneak peek of what you might be served. Feel free to also drool over the French Toast brunch or the vegetarian frittata. At each meal, you'll learn about the origins of the food and its correlation with the local environment and culture. You may also visit the onsite garden if you wish.

Wine: With each dinner, you'll sip a different natural, regional wine sourced by local, small producers.

Come ready to connect with yourself, release tensions, and relax. Combining hands-on art with invigorating yoga practices and nourishing home-cooked meals is just what you need to refresh your body and soul.

What is it Really Like?

Check out our blog post on Sustainable Retreats in Portugal for an even deeper look into what to expect. Or, watch these three (20-second video) clips to get a sense of a typical day at this beautiful eco-retreat center. Note that your stone sculpting workshops will replace some of the activities in these clips.

• Yoga, brunch, visiting a small coastal town
• Brunch, coastal hike, market visit, early evening yoga
• Free time, afternoon yoga, family-owned winery visit

Group Privatization:

If you want to bring your own group, we recommend avoiding the crowded high season and coming in spring (April to June) or fall (September to November). The beaches are deserted, and the days are mostly sunny and warm (you’ll need a cardigan for the evenings though).

This unique stone sculpting and yoga retreat is typically organized in the late fall and early winter part of the season (November & December). Coming in these low-season months fosters tourism dispersal (the antidote to "overtourism") and helps to bolster the local economy of the region year-round.

The weather can vary, but generally, you'll get a mixture of sunny and partly-sunny days, and temperatures will be mild to cool.

• November: In November, the average daytime temperature in the Alentejo region ranges from 13°C to 18°C (55°F to 64°F). Nights can be cooler, with temperatures dropping to around 7°C to 12°C (45°F to 54°F). It's a transition period, so you may experience some rainfall.
• December: December tends to be slightly cooler than November. Daytime temperatures average between 11°C and 16°C (52°F to 61°F), while nights can be colder, ranging from 5°C to 9°C (41°F to 48°F). Rainfall may increase during this month.

Our View on Sustainability
Sustainability is a way of life here. Our family has a deep respect and love for the region of Alentejo and we are passionately committed to protecting and preserving her to the best of our ability. Gratefully, we are able to plant our roots here and carry a strong sense of social responsibility to our community.

Our experiences are all based on the amazing nature of this place and our incredible community and we put a lot of effort to protect both. We love to share it with our guests and try to involve them as much as possible. This includes making them aware of our challenges and how can they further help. This is a truly authentic experience composed of small local and sustainable entrepreneurs only.

Sustainable Environmental Initiatives

We make a big effort to maintain and increase the amazing biodiversity among us through the diverse activities explained during the trip. Our eco-retreat center uses solar panels, LED lamps, and local, organic soaps and ecological detersives. We work a lot to reduce waste, reuse as much as we can, and recycle the rest. We have clear waste sorting systems in place for guests, serve mostly vegetarian meals, compost leftover food, and implement organic farming and regenerative forestry practices. The whole trip happens in a short circuit of 20 kilometers, and we are lucky to have nature, beaches, and historic towns all nearby to reduce this trip's footprint. We don't sell or use single-use plastic items. You will see our animals wandering free and happy along our property and the surrounding area.

Accommodation
Being the trip organizers, and the host of the accommodations ourselves, sustainability is part of our lives and business. Guests are welcome to explore every corner of the property and question any concerns they may have. As a small family business, we work very hard to improve every day and create a more positive impact on our environment and in our community.

Sustainable Economic Initiatives
We are a small start-up that works very closely with the local community that depends mostly on tourism and agriculture. The timing of our programs year-round, and especially out of high season, helps the community to guarantee their income all year round. By working directly with local farmers and small food/wine producers, we help them to maintain their projects of family-owned, completely organic productions.

Sustainable Social Initiatives

Being part of the local community ourselves, it's in our own interest to protect it and ensure it develops in a sustainable way. One of the high points of the trip is the visit to the sustainable farm where the grapes are grown before the winery and wine tasting. The tour is guided by the owner himself, a true expert that carries the work of five generations. The whole experience is very much community-oriented and we are very much actively involved in projects that protect it. Our other activities visiting local artisans, teaching guests about our cultural heritage, prioritizing small, local, and sustainable suppliers, and inclusive practices also support our efforts to be socially sustainable. We also discuss with travelers how to act responsibly in this destination and make donations to local organizations.

Responsible Animal Welfare

We are a pet-friendly site, prefer cruelty-free products, source meat and fish from trusted local suppliers, and support local pro-animal projects.

With a capacity of only 12 guests, plus its remote location, this eco-retreat is a safe way to enjoy Portugal. We follow special cleaning protocols adhering to European regulations.

Be sure you have traveler's insurance.