Arrifana

Iglesia de Santa Maria, Arrifana

Here is just a little bit of information about where we are located.

Vila Nova de Poiares is a municipality that has 7,457 inhabitants over an area of 83.82 square kilometers. The town of Vila Nova de Poiares has a population of 3,800.

In the municipality there are 4 'freguesias' or parishes: Arrifana, Lavegadas, Santo Andre de Poiares, and Sao Miguel de Poiares.

We are located in Arrifana, which is 3km from the center of V.N. de Poiares. Arrifana has 1603 inhabitants over 24.11 square kilometers, or 66.5 inhabitants per square kilometer.

Contract signed...

Two weeks after our visit to Portugal we can finally say that we will be starting renovations on the house soon!! After 3 productive days, meeting with local builders and an engineer, we have come to an agreement in contract. If there are no sudden surprises, the renovation on the roof will start next month (April) and then the rest of the renovation will follow.

With all this more or less planned, we have decided that we will be leaving Belgium on May 3rd, arriving in Vila Nova de Poiares on May 4th.

Visit to Portugal

This weekend (March 5th - 8th) we'll be in Portugal to meet with the engineer and builders. Hopefully all meetings go well and we'll come back with a more definite timeline.

Our timeline now looks something like this :

April 30, 2010 : Last day of work and last day at our apartment in Brussels

May 2010: Move to Portugal

Start renovation of the house as soon as possible.

Renovation +/- 8 months

Opening of B&B spring/summer 2011