Stay with us – Rent possibiliTies

Autumn 2025 
October 14 until end-November (TBD)

Basic information

Mata House is a working center that encourages awareness, connection, ecology, expression and freedom. We invite you to take part of our little temporary community for a while. As a guest you are welcome join our activities and processes.

This is not a normal Airbnb experience. We prefer to think of our guests as our room-mates, not customers. Our house is not a hotel, it’s not spotlessly clean or meticulously designed. It’s a home, it’s simple, spacious and comfortable. It’s a place for living beings, for experiencing and sharing. 

We ask our guests to take care of their rooms and the shared spaces, like we all do. You are invited to join any part of our activities: We have daily classes, usually in the morning and evening, such as meditation, dance, philosophy, sharing circles and more. 

During the day volunteers work around the house and grounds on various projects, so there might be some tool noise. On Fridays we usually have a big common dinner, sometimes with people from the area. .

See our volunteer program here to understand more about the “spirit” of Mata House and activities. We open the house for guests at specific times of the year. Come share this unique experience with us.

surroundings

Mata House resides in central Portugal, in a small and quiet village, overlooking a green, open valley. You can take long walks in nature, straight from the house.

The village has no amenities or shop, there only one bus a day, so transportation is only by car, taxi, or bicycle. Torres Novas is 10 minutes drive away and has everything we need – supermarket, restaurants and more.

Within 10-40 minutes drive you can find:

Life is quiet here, and we enjoy being at the house mostly. It’s possible to stay without a car, but we can’t drive you to town except when we’re going there anyway. However, experience shows this usually works out for everyone, and we often have outings to various locations during the week and especially in the weekend.

accommodations

 Accommodations are in spacious, light and airy rooms in Mata House. The rooms have wooden floors and simple furniture. All the rooms have a door  and windows to a big balcony around the house, with an incredible view. The house has central heating, is naturally cool in summer and has a ceiling fan in every room.

Mata house has a big, beautiful garden, with lawn you can enjoy. The land is full of plants and trees. Mata House has a big pool, which is open in the summer months. We also have a new dance studio that is often free to use – for yoga, movement, or playing music.

Included in the price:

  • Your room, comfortable bed and cabinet
  • Personal work desk – ask us if you need it
  • Blankets, linen, towels etc
  • Kitchen and all public spaces
  • Pool
  • Dance studio – you can use it when it’s free
  • Remote work tables outside and inside
  • Fast WIFI

Not included:

  • Cleaning your room during your stay
  • Cleaning the kitchen – please clean after yourself if you use it.
  • Food expenses or meals – See below

activities

As part of our community life and spiritual work, there’s always something happening at Mata House.

During the week:

  • On a personal level, people usually spend time taking long nature walks, in the pool, hanging out and talking to others, reading… whatever they wish
  • As a group, we have various practices that we do daily – meditation, dance, voice work, Tai Chi, studying sacred texts and more. See our volunteer program schedule for more details.
  • You or another participant may offer an activity, in the past we’ve had cacao ceremonies, music jams,wo/men circles, feldenkreis and many others.

Weekends:

  • On the weekends we often go hiking, go to some famous towns and sites in the area, or a group organizes to go to Lisbon, Sintra and other places.

Workshops:

  • Occasionally we there are workshops happening in Mata House or outside of it, to which you are welcome the join for a discounted price.

food

Mata House has a very big and very well equipped kitchen. The volunteer group buys food and cooks together, each person pays 35 euros a week. The food is vegetarian with vegan. It’s possible to cook meat but we ask to put it in a separate fridge and be considerate of others who are sensitive. 

We usually eats breakfast around 8:30, lunch around 14:00, and dinner is independent, but often some people cook together or share a meal.

As our guest, you have three possibilities:

  1. You can buy your own food and cook for yourself. The kitchen might be occupied when we cook for the volunteer group (although it’s quite big)
  2. You can join our shared food purchase, which is 35 euros a week, and cook for yourself
  3. You can join both to the group purchase and cooking effort. This means that you give 35 euros a week, and several times a week (depending on the group size) you will join the cooking of either breakfast or lunch.

Our experience shows that the option 3 works really well, and is by far the most fun option. You may pick any option that works best for you, and you can change your mind later. 

Prices & Rooms

  • If you need a desk in your room, let us know.
  • The family option is only for families, not for groups of friends.
  • If you have kids under 4 years old, please talk to us first. The rooms face a common space, we are a working community and noise travels easily. Thanks for understanding 

How to get to mata house

Mata House is located in a small village 10 minutes north of Torres Novas, Portugal.

  • By car – Mata House is about an hour and 15 minutes’ drive from Lisbon Airport, or 2 hours from Porto.
  • By bus – There are many buses coming to the area every day, either to Torres Novas, Fátima or Tomar. From Lisbon Oriente station it takes about an hour. See https://www.omio.com or other websites.
  • By train – There are many trains from Lisbon Oriente station to Entroncamento, taking between 50 and 90 minutes. See cp.pt  (Lisbon appears as “Lisboa”)

From these stations you can take a taxi. Torres Novas 10 minutes away. Tomar, Fatima or Entroncamento are 20-25 minutes. You can use Bolt or Uber, and we can help you find a taxi driver. If schedule allows, we might be able to pick you up.

Availability & Reservations

Currently we are open for rentals until mid/end of September 2024.
We will probably re-open around September/October, join our silent whatsapp group for updates.

To reserve:

  1. Send us an email with dates and a bit about you
  2. Our minimum stay is usually 1 week. If you want to stay for less contact us and we’ll see if it’s possible.
  3. We ask for a 50% non-refundable deposit, either by bank transfer, or credit card (with additional fee).
    The rest can be by cash or transfer on arrival.
  4. We are sorry, we can not accept cancellations, except in real emergencies.
  5. We can provide invoices if you need them.

If you’d like to come, contact us. Tell us why you want to come, and ask any questions if you have them.
☘️ Hope to see you in Mata House ☘️