Eden Leisure Holiday Rentals - Rent Holiday Homes Villas, Apartments and Cottages from Owners Direct

A restored farm house and adega (wine house) on the edge of a small village in Central Portugal. The village, Guimaraes, is located about 8 miles north east of the town of Viseu about three miles off the road to Satao.

There are two apartments in the Quinta, (farmhouse) one 2 bedroom, and one 1 bedroom.

Quinta do Rustica is on the ground floor and has a kitchen, utility room, toilet, large lounge, and double bedroom with en suite bathroom. Across the small internal courtyard there is a further double bedroom and en suite shower room suitable for people with disabilities. It should be noted that the rooms are on different levels so internal access with a wheel chair is limited.

Quinta Azul is on the first floor with access up the staircase at the front of the Quinta with 14 steps. There is a large open plan kitchen and living room, double bedroom and en suite bathroom. 

In the Adega, separated from the main house, we also have one 2 bedroom and one 1 bedroom apartment.
Adega do Tinto is on the first floor up 10 steps to an open plan kitchen and lounge. There are two bedrooms with shower rooms, one double with a view of the lagar (wine making room) and one twin.
Adega do Branca is an upside down apartment, reached up six steps, with the double bedroom and en suite bathroom underneath the lounge and open plan kitchen.

The village is quiet and peaceful with virtually no traffic and looks over a beautiful rolling landscape to the Serra de Estrela Mountains in the east.

Our garden contains orange, tangerine, lemon, grapefruit, peach, apple, pear, fig, pomegranate, walnut and chestnut trees, together with a small vineyard and flowers. 

There is a 12m x 6m swimming pool and a shower room. A barbecue kitchen, with a courtyard in which leisurely meals can be cooked and eaten, and the local wines can be sampled. 

All the apartments have fully equipped kitchens, Portuguese and English television, and all bed linen, towels etc are provided,  you need only to obtain food and drink.

This area of Portugal is not a prime tourist area and as such is quiet and un-crowded. It lies about an hour and a half from Porto and three and a half hours from Lisbon. The road network is good, many of the roads are quite new, and compared to the U.K. have very few cars on them.

In the east the Serra de Estrela mountains provide magnificent views and during the winter, snow sports are available. While to the west there are Atlantic beaches which during the week are un-crowded.
The countryside is dotted with small villages, many of the houses built with the local granite. It is common to see donkey carts, and ladies carrying loads of washing or vegetables on their heads. Most villages have a water tank which is used for washing clothes, although in our case the stream below the Quinta is used for this purpose. 

The pace of life here is much slower than the U.K. and very relaxing. The nearest town Viseu has an imposing granite cathedral at it's s centre, and a maze of small streets with a wide variety of independent shops. On the outskirts there are large supermarkets and a big new modern shopping mall.

There is a good golf course just the other side of Viseu about a twenty minute drive away.   

There are frequent flights to Porto from a variety of British airports. A hire car is essential.