For the woman who is always
there for everyone.
Except for herself.
Three nights in Portugal. Six women. Lusitanian horses, a sky full of stars, and silence you don’t have to fill.
You are the woman who always shows up. Who organises, carries, solves. For your children, your parents, your friends, your work.
You do it with love. But you matter too.
Sakina is three nights in Portugal. Six women. Lusitanian horses, a dark sky full of stars, good food and silence you don’t have to fill. Space to be yourself. Surrounded by women who understand without needing an explanation.
Sakina. The Arabic word for the stillness
that descends on a restless heart.
Working with horses
Your coach
has four legs
and never lies.
Horses are flight animals. They have survived millennia by sensing exactly what is around them. They don’t listen to what you say, but to what you carry with you. They are your mirror.
For women who are used to managing everything, that honesty is disarmingly quiet. They reflect what you cannot say. What comes loose after that is yours.
You ride too. Because there is something about moving through open land on the back of a horse that reminds your body what freedom feels like.
Not just riding. Making a connection.
The land
A beekeeping experience on the estate. A botanist who lets you taste and smell the plants of the Alentejo. Meals that taste of the place.
The sky
Stargazing under one of the darkest skies in Europe. No light pollution. The Milky Way as you have never seen it. A ritual that reminds you how small and how free you are.
The table
Meals outside, conversations that go where they go. No performance. Just women at a table with nowhere else to be.
The stillness
No agenda. No expectations. Space to put down something you have carried for too long. No promise of transformation. A genuine invitation to land.
The farewell
You leave with something. Not a plan, not a programme. A feeling. A memory of what it is to simply, quietly, be yourself.
Six women. No more.
Two group sessions and one individual session with the horses, per participant. The programme cannot hold more.
This retreat will never be larger
For the woman who has been
carrying things for years.
You take care of everything and everyone. Except yourself.
The stronger you are, the less anyone asks how you are doing. You have learned to keep going while running on empty.
Does this sound familiar? Then this is for you.
Sakina is not a solution. It is coming home to yourself.
You don’t have to explain
yourself here.
The six women in this retreat are carefully brought together. Not a random group. Women who carry similar things, who understand without needing it explained.
Something happens when women who recognise each other sit together in a quiet place. It doesn’t need a name. It only needs space.
“Stargazing as an opening ritual
under one of the darkest skies in Europe.”
Alentejo, Portugal · November 2026
São Lourenço do Barrocal
Monsaraz, Alentejo, Portugal
12 – 15 November 2026
Six women. No more.
Based on shared double occupancy. Single occupancy available on request, at a supplement.
Accommodation, all meals, stargazing, two group sessions and one individual session with the horses, riding, beekeeping experience, walk with a botanist
Not included, available on request.
From €2,800 per person. First edition, six places. Includes accommodation, all meals and the full programme.
Flights and transfer Lisbon to Barrocal. Susanne Kaufmann Spa treatments, bookable separately.
A Leading Hotel of the World. 780 hectares of olive groves, vineyards and open sky.
Let me know you are
interested.
No commitment. Just a conversation
to see if this is right for you.
I am interested in Sakina
or reach me directly
bookings@handpickedlifestyle.com