Dream Home

Four of us went on a round tour of Baixo Alentejo today: Beja, Serpa, and Mértola, but the best was probably a serendipitous find on the road to Beja - the Roman ruins at Pisões. After a fair drive on a dusty road, arrived to find they'd been closed for three years, but a lady living in a nearby house came out and offered to show us round.

It was just incredible - surrounded by wheat fields, an enormous, partially escavated house, with mosaics and marble floors, a dam providing water for a huge pool the width of the house, and underfloor heating and pipes for water in every room. In the middle, a patio like I've always dreamed of (for a house in a hot country), with a fountain and a large pool, marble columns at each corner and cool porches.

And grass growing over it all, snakeskins in the underfloor arches - totally neglected. Conceição, the woman, refused payment, picked me a rose, and gave us a bottle of cold water. She's not employed to do this, and no-one has ever taught her, but she's obviously passionate about the ruins in her backyard, and has swotted up whenever and however she's been able to.

And what wonderful workmanship - 2000 years later, open to the elements after centuries of being buried, still not possible to dislodge even one of the tiny mosaic stones.