BEGIN AGAIN - How you start matters. Begin with intention. (D'Alijo Retreat Center, Portugal)

Begin Again is a five-day new year retreat at D'Alijo Yoga Retreat Center in Casal, Vila Real, in northern Portugal. It is for anyone who wants to start the year with more clarity, energy and intention, and who would rather do that somewhere quiet than in the middle of ordinary life. The retreat combines yoga, breathwork and meditation with time in nature, and its theme is simple: how you start matters.

What to Expect

This is a yoga and meditation retreat built around reflection and reset. Over five days, the practices are meant to give you room to look at the year behind you and set a direction for the one ahead.

- Yoga: movement practice to bring you back into the body and settle the mind.
- Breathwork: breath-focused practice to shift your energy and attention.
- Meditation: time for stillness and for listening to what is already there.
- Nature: the landscape around the center is part of the retreat, not a backdrop to it.
- Time away from daily demands: the schedule gives you space to step out of routine, so reflection has somewhere to happen.

The aim is to begin the year from a more grounded place rather than carrying the pace of the old one into the new.

The Setting

D'Alijo Retreat Center is a yoga retreat center in the mountains of northern Portugal, in the Vila Real district. It hosts retreats and teacher trainings led by visiting facilitators and yoga studios, and its programme through the year includes yoga, ayurveda, silence, plant ceremony, Taoist practice and hot yoga. A five-day retreat here suits the place well: it is remote enough that stepping away from daily demands is easy, and quiet enough that the practices can do their work.

Before You Go

Begin Again is described as a retreat for starting the year with intention, and it does not ask for a particular level of experience. If you are unsure whether the pace or practices suit you, it is worth contacting the retreat leaders before you decide. Plan to arrive ready to put down your usual obligations for a few days, since the retreat depends on that.