Vrijplaats Amsterdam Roest, the Volkshotel with bar Canvas and club Doka, restaurants and even its own clothing brand. The 36-year-old catering tycoon Nadia Duinker had her affairs in order – literally and figuratively – in Amsterdam. Yet at the beginning of 2021, she sold everything she had built up and emigrated with her family to an abandoned village in Portugal. NH traveled to Malhadil or as Nadia calls it: Freedom Ville.
In the report below, Nadia shows us her village, while we talk about her old life in Amsterdam and how it differs from her current life in Malhadil. We also talk about the corona period, in which Nadia spoke out strongly about the policy surrounding it.
Nadia exchanges Amsterdam for an abandoned village in Portugal – NH News
“I could never have imagined that things would change so drastically before 2021,” says Nadia, as she looks out at her piece of land. She bought Freedom Ville together with her husband Thijs Timmers, because she felt a lack of freedom in Amsterdam. With that knowledge, the name of her village is also easy to place.
Nadia started her business in 2007 because she wanted to determine how she ran her business. But she lost her sense of entrepreneurial freedom over the years. “Space in Amsterdam is becoming scarcer. Before you have laid a building block, you are faced with years of legal processes, which kills your creativity.” When all her businesses had to close for a longer period of time due to corona in 2020, that was the straw that broke the camel’s back for her. Believing that the government had an ‘on and off’ switch for her businesses, she packed up and moved to Portugal.