Retreat details
Following the beautiful response to our first arts retreat in spring, we are hosting another 2 weeks of creativity, rest and conscious play in the valley this September.
As the season begins to shift, this retreat is an invitation to slow down before autumn arrives. To reconnect with creativity outside of productivity. To make with your hands, move your body gently, share meals, rest deeply and rediscover a more playful relationship with yourself and the world around you
Through daily somatic practice, reflective journalling and creative expression, we explore how awareness shapes both our inner and outer worlds. This week is about noticing how we move and play, what we gather and create, and how we leave our imprint.
The Visual Journal
The retreat will begin with a journal-binding workshop guided by Aissa, where each participant will create a personal space to hold sketches, reflections, collected fragments and observations from the week. This journal will accompany you throughout the retreat as a record of your inner and outer landscape. The making process will be guided by Eloïse and Ana, holding space for curiosity and personal expression.
Ceramics: Creating a Ritual Vessel
During the week, we will explore ceramics as a millennia-old creative practice. Ana will show you how to handbuild your own ceramic vessel and paint a personal altar piece, adorned with forms, textures and symbols that emerge naturally through the process.
Jewellery & Silversmithing
Using the ancient lost wax technique, we will design and carve a small wax amulet in the form of a pendant or a ring, inspired by personal symbols, pieces of the valley, memories or intentions. These miniature wax sculptures will later be cast into silver.
For those wishing to explore traditional silversmithing techniques like forging and soldering, an optional forged silver ring workshop will be available as an additional one-on-one session.
Optional Extras
There will also be plenty of space for stillness and spontaneity: slow mornings, shared conversations, river swims, afternoon tea, reading in the gardens and evenings gathered around nourishing vegetarian and vegan meals prepared with care.
To deepen your experience, additional massage treatments and Ayurvedic consultations will be available to book throughout your retreat.
Optional creative sessions may also be booked: a wheel-throwing pottery workshop (2 people per session), a cooking class with the Chef, or a one-to-one ring forging workshop with Eloïse.
These offerings are designed to allow you to shape your retreat experience — adding rest, exploration or further creative immersion as you feel called.
What’s included
Dance based movement practices with David
Ceramics workshops with Ana
Afternoon wax carving workshop with Eloïse
Journal Binding Workshop with Aissa
Creative journalling group sessions
3 freshly prepared, nourishing vegan/vegetarian meals daily
5 nights accommodation in stone cottages or Glamping belle tents
Treatment with Pinnih
Trip to the Rio Zêzere for wild swimming
Transportation to and from Oleiros
Your Team
Ana Magro
Ana is a ceramic artist whose practice explores the relationship between material, observation, and everyday ritual. After years studying drawing and painting, she was drawn to clay for its ability to become part of daily life with objects that are held, used, repaired, and passed on.
Working from her studio in Vale de Moses, Ana creates small-batch functional ceramics with a focus on form. She draws inspiration from the flowing lines of Art Nouveau, tea ceremony wares, the organic world, and an ongoing exploration of ceramics as a three-dimensional diary of lived experiences.
Alongside her studio practice, Ana teaches with an emphasis on curiosity over perfection. She sees clay as a material that cultivates observation, inviting people to pay attention to their hands, the behaviour of the clay, and the world around them. Her teaching encourages play, experimentation, and trust in the process, with the understanding that creativity is developed through practice, patience, and careful attention.
Eloïse Grace Winter
Eloïse is an artist-translator of Bajan and English descent, raised in rural Portugal, whose practice weaves together silversmithing, linguistics, illustration, and collective gathering. Through their work, they seek to translate and invite the magic of the natural and the spiritual into the continuous present, through adornment and collective care.
An interest in social and artistic practices motivates the creation, curation, and facilitation of various community projects, forest retreats, events, exhibitions, and creative directions. Since 2021, they have worked with the arts collective The Blacker The Berry Project, as the first and current Head of Safer Spaces.
Writing is an integral part of their practice. Moving between poetry, creative and asemantic writing, exploring language as a material flexible in meaning and in purpose. Their asemantic writing functions as a visual and intuitive form of illustration, inspiring the symbolic emphasis present in their jewellery.
David J. Amado
David is a Jamaican-American choreographer, ballet pedagogue and interdisciplinary artist whose work reimagines classical ballet as a living, accessible practice for every body. Trained in the Vaganova tradition, he explores the meeting point between ballet, nature and embodied creativity, drawing inspiration from the shared geometries of the natural world: roots and branches, spirals and lines, grounding and flight.
As the founder of Ballet para Todos, David has spent years bringing ballet into schools and communities beyond its traditional spaces, inviting people of all backgrounds to experience its transformative potential. Whether working with dancers or complete beginners, David invites participants to discover ballet not as something to achieve, but as a way of listening to the body, expanding creative possibility and cultivating strength, flexibility and joy from the inside out.
Travelling to us
We are located approximately 2.5 hours from both Lisbon and Porto and accessible by car, with a number of hire options available in both cities. For those looking to travel by public transport, we recommend travelling via Lisbon for the early morning 7am coach to our local town of Oleiros (Tickets available one month in advance from Rede Expressos bus services ) where we’ll pick you up for the short drive to the retreat. You’ll arrive in time for breakfast on Monday morning.
If driving here, check in anytime after 10am. At the end of the week, everyone departs early Saturday morning for a buffet breakfast in a café in Oleiros before boarding the 8.15am bus to Lisbon or Porto.
Check in/outs and transportation outside of these times may be available at an additional cost, please contact admin@valedemoses.com to confirm.
Accommodation & Prices
Single bed in the Moses Cottage, Adega Cottage or Glamping Belle Tents - 800€
Double or Twin beds in farmhouse or Belle tent - 1,400€ for two people
Double bed in farmhouse or Belle tent for single occupancy - 950€
To stay for just a night or two during the retreat - 175€ per night
Children under 18 - half price. Children under 5 - stay for free
We ask for a 20% deposit to secure your place and if for any reason you can’t make it, we simply carry your deposit forward to any retreat with us in the next 3 years.
For group or family booking discounts or if you have any questions, please contact admin@valedemoses.com