OUR PORTUGAL CONNECTION (continued)
We’re here to find great places with authentic regional charm, keep in touch with owners and update the website with local news, regional information and visitor highlights.
This local knowledge and ability to recommend with good judgement is what makes us a trusted source for planning a visit or holiday to Portugal.
Hideaway Portugal was set up by Alexander Corrie, a 39 year-old Anglo-Brazilian, whose family moved to Portugal in 1993, in association with Taylor's Port. A graduate of Oxford University and with an MBA from IE Business School, Alex has worked in environmental conservation, eco-tourism, the wine industry, marketing and consulting. He lives in the Alto Minho countryside.
He first visited Portugal in 1993, when his family moved to Porto, centre of the Port wine trade. Memories from that first summer are of Port cellars and sardinhadas, long empty beaches in the Coastal Beiras, terraced vineyards up the Douro and the bucolic scenery of the Minho. It seemed a perfect place for someone who loves the outdoors. On other visits, he travelled around the traditional and rugged Trás-os-Montes region and saw the capital city Lisbon, with its magnificent setting on hills overlooking the Tagus estuary.
Alex grew up on a farm in the hills outside Rio de Janeiro and, after schooling at St Edward's in England, went on to study Geography at Oxford University. He then lived in East Africa, working on environmental conservation projects in Tanzania and Mozambique, followed by luxury safari camps in Zambia and northern Kenya. When he returned to London, Alex worked for Tim Best Travel, a boutique travel company, specialising in safaris to Africa and the Indian Ocean islands.
In 2001, Alex moved to Portugal to lead walking and nature tours for ATG in the Alto Alentejo (a vast rural region with black bulls, cork trees and fortified hilltop villages) and the Azores (stunning volcanic islands ideal for hiking, diving and whale-watching). He also worked in the old cellar district of Porto, marketing Port and Douro wines to foreign markets. Weekends back in Portugal were spent exploring the country from wine regions to hiking in the Mountain Beiras and finding isolated beaches below cliffs in the Baixo Alentejo and western Algarve.
