The Wortmann Group works with five factories in Portugal, which, like the Wortmann office, are all located in the Portuguese city of Felgueiras. Felgueiras is known for its many shoe and textile factories and is about 45 minutes from Porto. I spent a lot of time in the factories. I was able to follow the entire shoe production and development process. The employees in the factories went to great lengths to explain the individual steps to us in detail. As you always learn better when you can lend a hand yourself, I was also allowed to make my own shoe during my time. I was allowed to cut out the leather by hand (which actually cost me a few blisters on my fingers) or work on the sewing machine myself. Before I came to Portugal, I always thought that it wouldn’t take that many people to make a shoe – with the technical developments we have today! Now I know that this is definitely not the case. Every shoe is handmade. Every shoe is different. Quite fascinating!

But it wasn’t just the production that I was able to see up close, but also the development. I was involved in the development of the prototypes in collaboration with our designers and product managers, as well as the subsequent corrections. One of my personal highlights: designing my own shoe in collaboration with our designer, which will actually be included in the collection. It’s a great feeling and I’m already looking forward to seeing the finished shoe in the store.

Of course, the entire process also involves working with a wide range of suppliers. As we all know, a shoe consists of more than just the upper material; laces, zippers, rivets and soles also have to be sourced and selected. Not so easy with so much choice.

Of course, the coronavirus pandemic has also made things difficult in Portugal. It goes without saying that masks had to be worn during working hours and, of course, social distancing had to be observed. Nevertheless, we were lucky enough to be able to see all the shoe factories. Although there were no visits to the shoelace factory or a tannery in Spain, we were provided with numerous videos, so we were able to gain a lot of knowledge there too. I am therefore certain that we learned no less from Corona in Portugal.

In my free time, I was very lucky to be able to continue pursuing my hobby of playing handball despite corona. The club “A.C Lusitanos” quickly accepted me into their team, which allowed me to get to know the Portuguese culture not only professionally, but also outside of work. Even though the language barrier was extremely high, as only a few Portuguese people speak English and I unfortunately don’t speak Portuguese, I was still able to communicate with my hands and feet on the pitch and had a lot of fun getting to know one or two handball terms in Portuguese. The coronavirus restrictions were limited here. Although the coach had to wear a mask at all times and we players had to take a temperature before every training session, we were still able to continue training, unlike in Germany.

We lived in the town of Matosinhos, which is right by the sea. Although we were in Portugal in the fall and winter, we were lucky enough to spend some time in the sun by the sea. In particular, I will never forget my jogging route (jetty right by the sea).

As Porto is only about 25 minutes away by bus from Matosinhos and the bus fares are affordable at a humane two euros, I also spent a lot of my free time there and got to know the city with its special flair. Porto is an incredibly great and fascinating city with special architecture that I will definitely visit again. Unfortunately, there was an increased lockdown at the end of our time in Portugal, which meant that we were no longer able to “say goodbye” to the city. At the weekend, you were no longer allowed to leave your district and from 1 p.m. there was a complete lockdown, during which you were no longer allowed to be on the streets and supermarkets and the like were also closed.