Olá!
We are Will Traylor (back right) and Joseph Wisniewski, or, as we are known here in Portugal, Gui and Zé, respectively. We have two others living with us, our Sealyham companions, Tucker (front right) is 15 and Saga is 12.
For 40 years I, Gui, have worked in real estate in New York City, mostly in the area of finance but also in municipal government and the nonprofit sector. Zé was a public school teacher and is now retired. We have been married for 34 years and together we made our home in New York, first in Brooklyn and then in Manhattan. When Zé retired we spent most of our time at our second home on Cape Cod in Massachusetts; we thought this would be the setting for the rest of our lives.
In June 2018 I visited Portugal for the very first time and only for three days. I did not need more time; I was smitten. Four months later, in October, I returned with Zé and our friend Bill Toner for a longer stay. I was on the hunt for a house and we spent a good deal of our time looking at prospective real estate purchases.
Nonetheless, we also had ample time to take in the beauty of the Algarve, which is Portugal’s southern most region. The Algarve was our introduction to the openness and friendliness of the Portuguese people. It was as well our initiation into the delights of the country’s food and wine, the expansiveness of its history, and the richness of its language, culture and customs.
We walked along narrow, ancient streets that had welcomed millenniums of visitors from Phoenician merchants to Roman legionaries to Moorish poets to medieval Christian monks. We sank our feet into the warm, sandy beach of Ilha de Tavira and gaped wide-eyed at the infinite expanse of the roaring Atlantic. We watched in wonder as the huge flocks of flamingos pranced and paraded on the salt flats that are the border between land and ocean. We relaxed for dinner along the Rio Gilão, which bisects Tavira, and we toasted our good fortune with the deep straw-colored local white wine.
By the end of our October visit I had decided to buy a house. I was set on one in Santa Luzia that was then under-construction; Zé had his eye on another, one in Tavira’s historic center. After our return to the States we debated back and forth for while. Zé will rightly say that it was never much of a debate. I ultimately signed a purchase contract on the Santa Luzia new-build in late December. We moved into our new home on September 5, 2019 after selling our Cape Cod house just one week earlier, on August 28th.
Yes, it was all a whirlwind and on a whim. I am grateful that Zé was game and gracious to allow me to follow my dream, which was not his dream. I still do not think that living on southern coast of Portugal in a relatively small fishing village is his dream. However, he will allow that there are many, many mutual pleasures that we share and enjoy together as well as separately.
For the last two+ years we have lived full time in Santa Luzia, which was not really our original strategy. No, our original plan was to use Portugal as a base for travel around Europe and beyond, but the pandemic changed all that. Our time here in Santa Luzia, however, has been eye-opening and full of small, pleasant surprises. This experience now fuels our desire to share our story with you.
Our desire to share Santa Luzia, Tavira, the Algarve and Portugal is why we decided to create this blog, Portugalizar. Here you will discover just how special Santa Luzia and Tavira are; they are secreted treasures waiting to be discovered. Thank you for joining us as our adventure continues.
