To begin at the beginning. Sometime in June… or was it May? My husband mentioned that a coworker of his and their wife, were traveling to Portugal to scope it out with the intention of moving there in a few years. That caught my attention in a BIG way. First, I know the couple and consider them very savvy, if they think it’s a good place to retire, then it’s a good place to retire. Second, I LOVE Europe and it has been a dream of mine to live there since my 1st visit to Switzerland in my early 20’s. Digging a little deeper into Portugal we see it is a fascinating place with a great deal of history and beauty, and a population that is aging out. Politically stable, extremely safe with a highly rated health care system all very important to, well I’ll admit it, seniors like me.
My husband is getting ready to retire in the next year and has been mumbling about moving out of California, as much as we love it, but to where? So, in July we arranged a 3 week visit to scout out various cities with the idea in mind, would we want to live here?
The short answer is YES, not completely decided yet, but pretty firmly in the camp of yes, we will be moving, ideally to Porto, Portugal. Come along on our adventure.
Porto in particular is known for its Art Nouveau architecture, much of the city being built during the rise of its famous beverage, Port wine. There is a mixture of older and newer buildings as well giving it that delightful European flavor.
We are all wired differently, I’m the kind of person who loves art, and architecture, given the choice between visiting Manhattan or Juneau, I’ll take Manhattan. I am far more interested in the man-made, over the natural. I think also, since Los Angeles is as I like to say, “about 15 minutes old”, and most of it built up in the last 60 years, I am fascinated by places where buildings constructed 300 years ago, and more are still in use. I love the slower pace in Portugal, where people take the time to really enjoy life. Where not everything is about work, job prestige, what kind of car you drive. Or for that matter needing to drive at all. Where I live, you need a car to get anywhere. I’m looking forward to living in a walkable city. Porto is a big little city, more like Pasadena in feel than Downtown LA, with trolleys running up and down the narrow streets and situated on a river. This California girl never likes to get too far from water.
The buildings with their tile facades are like jewel boxes, each more beautiful than the last and their patterns and designs sends my quilters heart aflutter. I see endless possibilities in them for both traditional and art quilts. There is one drawback I did find, quilting itself has not been a Portuguese art form. I did find a couple shops on the internet, luckily one charming one in Porto itself, but the vast selection of fabrics available to me where I live, well that is not the case there. As the shop owner said, quilting is just getting started there. Which is an opportunity to get in and help them expand quilting.
So much of what I saw in Portugal really set my quilters brain on FIRE! Everything from the designs in the cobblestone walkways to the tiles on the walls screamed quilts to me.
Some of the designs I saw at the tile museum which were many hundreds of years old ARE traditional quilt designs used today and a few that aren’t could or should be!
You know I am an art quilter at heart, but some of these have me excited about making bed quilts and throws again! I’m a sucker for chain designs but photos 4 and 5 have me intrigued 4 would be simple enough to do, 5 a bit more challenging but worth it!!!
I am preparing a video tour of the tile museum in Lisbon, Portugal. Make sure to subscribe to my YouTube cannel so you don’t miss any of my tutorials and tours. lauretta crites - YouTube