Most of my husband´s family is from the Alentejo and half of them still live out there, in various towns scattered across the countryside. This works out perfectly as we are always visiting one house or the other and the Alentejo just so happens to be my favourite part of Portugal. This is Alcaçovas, where we spend our Easters.
And last but not least, in this series of Alentejo towns, is Avis… a quiet little place in the northern Alentejo that (I have been told) has the rather dubious claim to fame of having been, once upon a time, the capital of Portugal. This was because the king at that time was from here and he didn´t want to be bothered by moving home and family all the way to Lisbon, so he just simply declared Avis to be the capital and that was that. The joys of a monarchy 😉 However, while trying to find out if this…
Continuing with the Alentejo theme, this is Évora, the biggest city in the northern part of the region and a place that I have blogged about before, you can see more HERE. Things have been pretty crazy over at Piteira Photography the last few months and if you´ve been following me on Instagram you may have noticed that we´re on the road almost constantly, which is fun and exhilarating, but doen´t leave much time for beautifully descriptive blog posts… or for vacuuming the house, but that´s another story. So apologies for these short posts, I know it´s pretty much been “Here´s…
Another place we visited on our tour of the Alentejo was the Coudelaria de Alter (the Alter Stud Farm). This was an important stop on the “Portugal Itinerary” as my sister and my mom are both very horsey people and therefore my dad didn´t have any choice in the matter. I would never have thought to visit if my sister hadn´t insisted but it was definitely worth it, it´s a beautiful place and the horses are magnificent.
Over the next 5 weeks I´m going to be blogging a series of Alentejo towns… an Alentejo special! My family came to visit us in May, it was their first time in Portugal so we spent 3 weeks driving the country flat and because this is my favourite part, we spent quite a lot of time exploring the region. Monsaraz is a small hill-top town on the Alqueva lake, right on the border with Spain. Because of it´s strategic location on a hill near the Spanish border it is one of the oldest towns in the southern part of Portugal…
As you may have noticed by now, I am quite a big fan of the Alentejo region of Portugal. South of the Tagus river (Tejo) but before you get to the southern most coast, this part of the country is typified by olive trees and cork oaks, vineyards and tiny sunbleached villages. I love it here and visit as often as possible (except for during the peak of the summer, when the heat is unbearable). These are a few iPhone photos from the last year or so of visits… Barragem da Alqueva Évora Alcaçovas Casa Branca
The first time I visited Évora was back in 2007 and I fell in love with the city immediately… so much so that we were even talking about maybe living there once we decided to settle in Portugal. But then the second time I visited was in the peak of the summer, and I quickly changed my mind. The city is incredibly beautiful, yes… but 40 degree heat and absolutely no cooling breeze for 2 months of the year… not to mention the fact that it´s a bit far from the coast, is all too much for this wind and ocean loving…
I am 100% a warm weather person… I don´t like to be cold and more than 4 days of consecutive rain is guaranteed to drive me completely crazy. But having said that, I really like autumn and I think, photographically speaking, it might just be my favourite time of year. The jury´s still out on that one, because summer is pretty awesome, but there´s just something about the colours and the light of autumn… In November last year we visited the Herdade do Freixo do Meio for their annual “Encontro do Outono” or Autumn Meet-up. The Herdade is an organic farm…
This is pretty much my summer in a nutshell… there was lots of beach and delicious sunsets, quite a bit of sangria, an enormous amount of figs, Lisbon festivals in June, quite a bit of camping, seafood, more figs, more beach, Serra da Estrela, Algarve, Alentejo, more sangria and lots and lots of dogwalking. In between all of this there were 21 weddings and countless other shoots and things… and the fact that the rain in Spain does NOT stay mainly on the plain, but you already heard about that… It was a good summer, but now it´s almost over. But that´s…
Kerry Murray 