Last summer we hopped on a ferry boat in the fishing town of Peniche to spend the day on Berlenga island, off the west coast of Portugal. The Berlenga archipelago is a nature reserve so the “human footprint” is quite limited… apart from a few houses at the harbour, the lighthouse and the fort, there isn´t much here apart from seagulls and clear blue seas. We only spend the day but I loved the wildness of this place and would definitely like to come back and spend a few days here.
Being a freelancer and working from home has it´s pro´s and con´s, like everything else in life. Pro´s include being able to work when the inspiration strikes, whether it´s during the “real world work hours” or at 3am and conversely, being able to take time off on a Tuesday afternoon because the weather is great and you´d really just like to be on the beach right now. It also means that you can spend the entire day in your pyjamas which may or may not be a good thing… I´m on the fence about that one. The crappy part, however,…
Every time we visit Porto I fall a bit more in love with this quirky little city. It´s different from Lisbon, in spite of still feeling Portuguese it´s almost as though you´re in another country. It´s a small, compact city, which is great because you can abandon your car and head everywhere on foot and there are so many cute little corners and tiny shops to be discovered, it´s always such a treat to spend a few days here.
Our last few days in Iceland were spent on the south coast, near the town of Vik. It was at this point in our trip that we realised just how big this island actually is. Bigger than Portugal, according to our friend Google. We drove from Budir to Vik all in one go, via Reykjavik as there was no alternative route to avoid the city. The speed limit here is 90 km/h and there are speed traps EVERYWHERE. For people accustomed to the Portuguese driving style (ie: as fast as you can get away with) this was worse than Chinese…
After several days in Reykjavik and our day trip through the Golden Circle, we hit the road for a longer drive out to the Snæfellsnes Peninsula on the west coast of Iceland. This part of the island is very wild and windswept… not much in the way of human settlement as the area isn´t very habitable, or farmable. It seems that the biggest industry in the part of the island is fishing and the few towns we did encounter were all on the coast. We spent a few nights at the Budir Hotel, which stands by itself on the edge of an…
Using Reykjavik as our base, we spent a day exploring the Golden Circle, which is a round-trip route through some of Iceland´s most famous attractions. These are the classic guidebook destinations and, predictably, they were packed with selfie-stick toting tour groups. Of course I am aware of the irony in my being exasperated at the crowds because… we were there too, so we weren´t exactly “off the beaten track”. However, the magic and wildness of these places (the reason they became famous in the first place) is definitely affected by the crowds so if you´re there during peak season and you…
In August of 2015 we travelled to Iceland for a week… I´m sitting here trying to think of a word that can sum up how I feel about it all but the truth is that I can´t. Iceland is what I expected it to be (cold, expensive, lots of horses) but it´s also not at all what I expected. It´s much bigger than I thought it was, bigger than Portugal! We didn´t find this out until about halfway though the trip, when it seemed like we were driving for way longer than we thought we would be… and so I Googled…
We visited the Costa Vicentina several times this year and anyone who has been following this blog for more than 5 minutes will have realised that it´s pretty much our favourite part of Portugal… you can see more here and here. These images are from several different trip throughout this summer…
Marvão is a small town in the northern region of the Alentejo, very close to the Spanish border. Like many other border towns with ancient origins, the purpose of it´s existence was to protect against invading enemy troops which is why it is heavily fortified and perched on top of a hill with an unobstructed view for kilometres in every direction. It seems I have a bit of a thing for these border towns and it´s fascinating to visit them spread out from north to south along the border… their reasons for existence are all the same but the way they´ve been…
Cape Town is my hometown so I don´t tend to take a lot of photos when I´m here… my time is spent more on seeing friends and family and doing those everyday mundane things that are familiar, things that mean “home”. Stuff that you take for granted when you live somewhere suddenly becomes the most important thing ever when you live away. Things like a decent cup of tea, Marmite on Provita, waking up at dawn to climb a mountain… So these photos are a bit random and don´t have a very clear story line, but sometimes that´s just how…
Kerry Murray 