HOW WE SEE PORTUGAL (2 Years After Moving Here From UK)

[Music] two years ago we sold our house and we left the UK to come to Portugal and we spent a few months traveling the country we spent about six months in the South and then we moved up here to Central Portugal and we bought this three Acre Farm to renovate if you're if you're here this is Ricky Ricky out renovating here in so after two years of living here in various locations across the country we thought it'd be interesting to make a video kind of reviewing and talking about our experiences and also looking at the expectations we had of Portugal against the realities please bear in mind though this is only our experiences and you know everyone's experiences are different so I'm sure there'll be lots of opinions out there that are different to ours and if you have one where you've had a similar experience or a differing experience let us know in the comments because we'd love to hear from you also please excuse my sunglasses but today is the sunniest day the firstly one thing that just never ceases to amaze us here is just how kind generous and welcoming the Portuguese people are for example shortly after arriving at this property we were taking a walk down one of the lanes around here and met one of our neighbors for the first time and before we know it he's dashed back into the house to bring out his wife and then shortly after that she actually nips back and brings back an armful of courgettes and uh what were they cucumbers cucumbers yeah they were massive weren't they huge yeah yeah so we had to complete our dog walker Laden with fresh produce and one of our other neighbors on a weekly basis he brings around whatever he's got lots of it could be oranges lemons cabbages Tomatoes watermelons it just makes you so it feel so welcome in the community as well foreign before we even decided to move to Portugal one of the aspects that actually swayed our decision was when we saw the crime rate for the country it is so low and after being here for a while I can attest or we can attest that really the facts don't lie it is so safe I feel so secure just to walk about at night time on my own I have no quibble and no feeling of when he's doing that yeah and also I think if we were back in the UK or somewhere like that I would not feel comfortable with Victoria walking out late at night by herself not that we do that here but there is the occasional time where you had to go and do something or and you know I really don't have any concerns at all same about the safety of our property as well of course there are robberies there are burglaries and things that happen out here but they are very few and far between personally we don't know anybody who's been burgled out here and also another big thing that is a huge difference between the UK a and Portugal especially where we are you know in the countryside it's the anti-social Behavior just really isn't a thing which is crazy coming from the UK because anybody who lives in the UK knows whether you live in a village a town or a city anti-social behavior is a really big problem as I was leaving the supermarket a couple of weeks of weird or something around that and he just abruptly stopped I didn't run into him with my trolley not far off but um I didn't know why he'd stopped but anyway he went down and picked up a piece of litter off of the floor and I think you know that random act that idea to actually take care of your surroundings and take pride in it as well and I think that's probably quite a nice demonstration that there's a real sense of community and Community Pride as well still evident here one aspect that I think most people ourselves included to a degree kind of have some degree of expectation about before they move to a country is the cost of living so when it comes to food for us at least our weekly shop definitely costs more in Portugal than it does than it did than it did in the UK another aspect to bear in mind is that I would say anyway in Portuguese supermarkets you don't have quite as much choice in the products that you buy as you would in the UK one aspect that personally affects me is that I have celiac disease so I need some gluten-free products now and again and for example one week you'll go and you'll be able to buy them and then another week will go by and you just can't get hold of them so it's a case of buying them when you see them I think one really positive thing that Portugal has going for it which lots of people flock here for is the cost of property property prices here are incredibly affordable especially when compared to the UK you know that's a market we know so that's the only real comparison we can make but one thing I will say is that the prices are rising you know just in the few years we've been here we have seen the prices take a sharp rise and I'm sure people probably who were here before us have noted how much have gone up by the time we came and to be honest that's not a trend that I see stopping anytime soon you know there is just an abundance of property available and there's also a lot of people coming here wanting to live here and enjoy a life in the Sun one thing that has amazed us here and has been a bit of a revelation is just how much Wildlife there is I mean I know that we live in the countryside so this is probably a point that is much more specific to us than if you live somewhere it's Metropolitan but you know we see so many birds of prey so many smaller birds vultures wild boars Mongoose what else snakes snakes they're not that they're not venomous though no not venomous I think there's one venomous snake in all of Portugal but it's very rare but yes lizards Scorpions so many different things and you see these things all the time so it's been really good in terms of an education as well because lots of these things are never new about whereas now with a little bit of knowledge on which is good you might be wondering who this little person is um if you're not familiar with our videos then maybe you've not met her before but this is actually Poppy and she actually came to us she was a street dog and she kind of decided to start living with us but unfortunately there are a lot oh thank you so much there are lots of stray animals cats and dogs in Portugal which is it's sad to see but there are lots of organizations that wherever you're living whether it's the UK or other places in Europe you absolutely can adopt from there so highly recommend checking them out one thing for us that is a bit of a negative and if you're an animal lover and you're gonna plan to live in rural Portugal you should really be prepared that you are going to see quite a few animals on chains mostly dogs but also horses sometimes goats and it's sad you know because lots of these animals are just spending their life on a chain they don't have freedom to roam in a safe place it's something that is definitely improving and a few years ago I think now they made a new law which meant a dog couldn't be kept on a chain for longer than four hours and it had to have you know Water Shelter From The Heat all these types of things but you know in rural areas it's definitely not being enforced as much as it probably is in other places but you know we're both hopeful that over time it will get better without a doubt one of our personal motivations in coming to Portugal was the weather you're so fortunate this is like the end of January and it's just beautiful Skies lovely sunshine and we've had this now for like weeks on end but you know one thing to bear in mind that's really hard to grasp until you've come and lived here is that the weather isn't always like this you have very cold Winters in certain places you have very wet winters at times you know although we've got lovely weather now and I say we've had it for a couple of weeks for that for the last month maybe easily yeah it was raining so heavily there was flooding all over the country and it was just a bit of an unpleasant time to be living here if I'm being honest and similarly in the summer it's not like where we're in the UK you know the summer is celebrated because the weather you know at its peak is like between 20 25 sometimes it does get hotter but most of the time that's it so it's a really nice comfortable temperature the summer here is brutal to the point of I would say we don't enjoy it because you know the temperature is between 30 40 degrees sometimes over 40 degrees and you know we came here because we like being outside and during that time you just can't be outside like it's really uncomfortable but also you have to really be careful of getting burnt and also for the animals we have two dogs so their well-being is like right at the top of our priority list so you do have to be really cautious about exposure for the for the animals as well yeah but just to when this little segment on I will say the autumns here and the Springs here are just incredible you know they are probably comparable to if I was to think back to the UK what the perfect summer would be like yes and that is largely what Autumn and springer-like here you know High Teens 20 degrees sunny all the time blue skies yeah it's just it's a lovely time to be outside and be in the countryside [Music] Portugal has a National Health Service and although we're used to it certainly for some other people other nationalities who move here that will be a huge bonus last year we actually had first-hand experience using the National Health Service here an ambulance had to be called for me and unbelievably it arrived within 10 minutes even though we live in the heart of the countryside in a really remote place after that I was treated in the hospital and further to that I was referred to some Specialists and at every Point people were kind and patient and it was just overall a really really positive experience [Music] so one thing that we've noticed during our time here is how much the need to speak the language differs in different areas across the country so for example when we were in the south in lots of places because tourism is such a big industry there most people spoke English and at that time we were new here so we spoke a little Portuguese but loads of people just realized we were English and they spoke to us in English now whether you think that's a good or a bad thing you know that's up to you but when you're new to the country it certainly is Handy but when we were up here in the middle of the country almost nobody speaks English no it's a lot more of an older community up here lots of the young people are taught from a young age but as many of you might know the young people in Portugal tend to migrate to the cities or they move abroad so in these kind of rural areas you really need to learn to speak to Portuguese to be able to communicate with your neighbors estamos aprender Portuguese Mars [Music] it's a really difficult language and you know we've been trying to learn granted we've not been putting in as much time as we would like to and you know that's one of our big things for 2023 is to put more time more frequently into expanding our knowledge so if there's one thing you take away from this it's that if you are coming to the country do try and learn the language because even if you don't speak it well the people here are really friendly and by you just making the effort even if the person can speak English just by you making the effort to speak Portuguese we've noticed that they respond to you really well they're really Smiley and they're really glad that you're trying foreign [Music] so this one is kind of a positive and a negative so I think lots of people us included come here because you're expecting a slower pace of life but one thing to be prepared for is that everybody else has got that slower pace of life so with that you know that means that if you want something done quickly you know by a business a company a Tradesman don't hold your breath because it's going to take much longer than you think one thing to bear in mind as well is if you're in town doing some shopping a lot of businesses and shops we'll just close for lunch and we're not talking 30 minutes we're talking two hours so yeah definitely bear that one in mind yeah one aspect that we probably underestimated before moving to Portugal was actually the beauty of the natural landscape here it really is outstanding and it's just everywhere it's absolutely everywhere you are so spoiled and every single time we take a drive even the drive to the supermarket which normally is like a pretty tedious drive here there's no end of views and you always see something that really takes your breath away or really makes you kind of feel grateful that you're here yeah it's a pinch me moment I'm actually from the countryside in England but even for me who's a little bit spoiled with beautiful landscapes Portugal is next level it's so impressive I think one of the most amazing things about it is just how untouched and raw the landscape is and because there is just so much of it it's just awe-inspiring obviously bear in mind the population here is considerably lower than other countries so that's why so much of it is untouched but still it's something to really appreciate and Savor when you're here and kind of on a side note to this is just acknowledging how clean the country is wild areas you don't see litter roads Villages towns everywhere is so well cared for and yeah that's something that we really appreciate foreign so the big question after everything we've discussed and everything that we've shared about our experience the past two years if we could do it all again would we move to Portugal absolutely absolutely agreed oh absolutely yeah okay I think uh you know given all the things we've said today I think it's obvious that we really love being here and we've given our honest opinions because you know we're not trying to paint this perfect picture of Portugal because nowhere is perfect it has its downsides and I'm sure if you speak to Portuguese people they'll agree with lots of things that we've said but for us the pros far outweigh the cons the landscape the people the wildlife the outdoors life you know the climate it's never ended and yeah it really is never ending and we just have a much better quality of life here in a much more fulfilling life here yeah definitely yeah so if you're thinking of moving to Portugal we hope you found this video interesting if you disagree with some of the stuff we've said I really hope we haven't offended anybody we were just trying to give our you know honest opinion of what we've learned in the last two years whether you agree or disagree with what we've said let us know in the comments because it's always interesting to get other people's perspectives hope you've enjoyed it and we will see you next week and we'll be back with another video renovating the farm

Channel: Life by Living

Views: 248,933

Keywords: living in portugal, moving to portugal, cost of living in portugal, portugal, leaving the uk, moving abroad, moving to europe, moving to portugal from UK, Portuguese countryside, rural portugal, Portugal farm life, should I move to Portugal, I moved to Portugal, we moved to portugal, pros and cons portugal, pros and cons living in portugal, portugal good life, portugal good place to live, portugal crime rate, expats portugal, expats in portugal, central portugal

Id: C13ENlMcdQY

Length: 16min 23sec (983 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 05 2023