7-Daagse Meditatie en Yoga Retreat voor Vrouwen in de Algarve, Portugal

You will stay in a shared, double or single accommodation, all available with en-suite bathroom. The farmhouse consists of two buildings with five en-suite bedrooms and a big inside yoga room. The whole house is stunningly rebuilt, completely restored in a barefoot luxurious way.

The house is very cozy, walking from one room to the next. Both houses have big living rooms with comfy sofas and a fireplace for those chilly evenings. There is a big luxurious farm kitchen where all the great meals will be prepared and laughter will be shared.

The yoga room is a big open inside space perfect for all the classes. It is the most amazing place to host a retreat, an escape away from the crowds, a place to get centered again, to come home. All the en-suite rooms are luxurious, with each room having their own bathroom.

The house is only a ten minutes’ drive from one of the most beautiful beaches Portugal has to offer, Praia do Amoreira with its lagoons and amazing waves. All other great beaches are all in the vicinity.

The eco farmhouse is set amidst a coastal national park. It's a self-sustainable house connected to solar panels. The big pool is definitely one of the best features of the house and is completely filled with salt water so no chlorine added.

During the retreat you will specifically use Iyengar yoga for women's health, focusing on what to practice during which phase of your menstrual cycle and overall practices for women's well-being. It is a week full of yoga specifically for women, mindfulness meditations, menstrual cycle and fertility awareness sessions as well as herbal medicine workshops all for women's health. It is a connection to your inner and outer nature.

Iyengar yoga

What is unique about Iyengar yoga is that it is characterized in the practice of asana and pranayama with the innovative approach emphasizing precision and alignment, planned sequencing, timing and the use of props. This approach has allowed people of varying ages, levels of health and fitness to enjoy the benefits which a sustained practice can bring, the ability to face the physical, mental and emotional challenges of contemporary life with strength, vitality, mobility, thoughtfulness, and equanimity.

Menstrual cycle awareness

What if loving your menstrual cycle was the key to accessing your full authority and power as a woman. As a woman, you are coded for power and the journey to realizing the fullness and beauty of that power, your wild power, lies in the rhythm and change of your menstrual cycle.

Menstruality is the exciting new revolution happening in women’s health and well-being, healing and therapeutic disciplines, coaching, education and leadership, and feminine spiritual practice.

Menstruality is the female life process of menarche, the menstrual cycle, menopause and the mature years. It is the woman’s ground, her initiatory process and ‘the mother cycle’, out of which rises the initiatory path to motherhood that is conception, pregnancy, birth, and breastfeeding.

Menstruality describes the precise and multi-layered biological, psychological and spiritual process of maturation within the female body. Menstruality is the actual lived experience of this process, the knowledge that a woman accumulates or grows down into, and the field consciousness that this embodied knowledge generates.

Menstruality is a language, a way of articulating a woman’s experience that is rooted in natural lore and the process of evolution. It is how women pass on our knowledge of our feminine life process from one to another. It is a shared way of being.

Herbal medicine workshops

Every woman is intimately tied to nature. The menstrual cycle follows the cycle of the moon, ebbing and flowing every 28 days, in most cases. A woman’s body can grow and change, like the earth, to hold the life that grows within. And like the soil below you, a woman’s body can assimilate the nutrients needed to grow the perfect food for her children.

Perhaps this connection with the cycles of nature has something to do with the powerful relationship that plants can have in supporting the health of women. For thousands of years, herbs have been consumed as part of rituals of menstruation and as part of supporting a woman through her transitions into puberty, motherhood, and menopause. And today, botanical medicines provide potent medicine for modern women.

Mindfulness meditation

If you learn to focus your attention on your breath, thoughts, feelings and physical sensations, you establish a strong foundation. It is a foundation from which you can expand your awareness to your actions and interactions with yourselves, other people, and the world.

You choose your behavior based on response and conscious choice instead of habits and automatic patterns. When you are aware, you can take care of your feelings of anger, frustration, anxiety, stress, fear, and insecurity. When you are aware, you notice all the little things around you that make life beautiful and that lift your mood. When you are aware, you feel more calm, joyful and alive.

Example day

• 07:30 Wake up to the sound of nature
• 08:00 Morning yoga class
• 10:00 Yummy breakfast
• 11:30 Menstrual cycle awareness or herbal medicine workshop
• 14:00 Lunch
• 15:00 Free time to chill by the saltwater swimming pool, go to the beach or just relax
• 18:00 Restorative yoga class
• 19:30 Delicious dinner
• 20:30 Mindfulness meditation

The retreat will be held in yet another stunning setting amidst the national park of Costa Vicentina on the South West coast of Portugal. It is in a secluded sustainable, eco farmhouse surrounded by an amazing garden, cork, and pine forest, added with a lush and big saltwater swimming pool.

The Costa Vicentina National Coastal Park is also a great place for hiking as the Vicentina trail goes all the way from Sagres to Sines and passes just in front of the house.

Nearby places

• Praia do Amoreira - 10 minutes' drive

At Yogaion, the vegan / vegetarian meals are prepared with simple, fresh, local, mostly organic ingredients and most important, love, without any added processed sugars or other processed ingredients.

All the food during the retreat is local and organic coming either straight from the organic farms down the road or from the farmers market. This means that most of the waste is biodegradable and for any other waste there will be a full-on recycling program. There is also a towel and sheet program so that there will be no waist with the washing machine.

Shivani will be cooking all the delicious meals during the week, lovingly preparing all the food, creating mouthwatering delicious meals from breakfast to dinner and dessert. If there are any other dietary allergies or intolerances please let Yogaion know before you book, as Yogaion will try to accommodate for them as good as they can.

If you are joining the Yoga and Nourish or the Yoga, Surf and Nourish retreat, you will have a chance to learn how to cook some of these amazing recipes.

• Cycling
• Extra massage treatments (45 EUR for 1 hour / 65 EUR for 1.5 hours)
• Surf lessons

• 10 morning and evening Iyengar women's health yoga classes
• 5 evening mindfulness meditations
• 2 menstrual cycle awareness sessions
• 2 herbal medicine for women's health workshops
• 6 nights’ accommodation
• 3 healthy, abundant vegetarian meals a day
• Water and herbal tea
• Yoga mats
• Use of salt water swimming pool

• Flights
• Airport transfer
• Extra massage treatments
• Bicycle rent
• Surf lessons

Arrival by airplane

Please book your flight to arrive at Faro Airport (FAO) or Lisbon Portela Airport (LIS). Transfer from and to this airport is available upon request.

Please book your flight to arrive at Faro Airport (FAO) or Lisbon Portela Airport (LIS). From Faro Airport, you can rent a car. Yogaion can arrange airport transfer to the Eco Farmhouse in Abris, Aljezur. Airport transfer from Faro airport (105 EUR one way can be shared with 3 others).

Arrival by bus or taxi

From Lisbon Airport, you can take a train or bus to Lagos, then taxi to the retreat. Bus/train to Lagos and taxi (45 EUR taxi). Lisbon airport, train/bus to Lagos and then taxi (45 EUR taxi).

• Een reservering vereist een aanbetaling van 50% van de totale prijs.
• De betaling wordt niet gerestitueerd als de boeking wordt geannuleerd.
• De rest van de betaling moet 7 dagen voor aankomst worden voldaan.