Mértola | Alentejo

Mértola was one of the first places I visited in Portugal, back in 2007 while here on holiday for the first time. I remember being fascinated by the tiny white houses and mismatched roof tiles, so very different to what I was used to back home… but the thing that made the biggest impression, that took my breath away quite literally, was the heat. So much heat. No wind, no shade, just hot white light reflecting everywhere and a cloudless blue sky burning down from above. So keeping that in mind, try not to visit in the peak of summer… not…

Évora | Alentejo

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…

Coudelaria de Alter | Alentejo

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.

Monsaraz | Alentejo

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…

Évora, Alentejo

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…

Portugal roadtrip Day 3 – Praia do Malhão to Sagres

If you haven’t already, then you may want to read Day 1 and Day 2 first… Day 3 took us from Praia do Malhão down to Sagres, the south-western corner of Portugal and the end of our trip. We meandered along, stopping for a while in Vila Nova de Milfontes, Zambujeira do Mar and Carrapateira and while on the last stretch of road before reaching our campsite we saw a cute sign for a little village called Aldeia da Pedralva… so we decided to take a detour. A detour that turned into a caipirinha and then another… and then dinner……

Costa Vicentina, Portugal

Portugal roadtrip Day 2 – Costa Vicentina: Praia da Galé to Praia do Malhão.

Day 2 of our all-girls Portugal road trip… you can find Day 1 here. We spent the night at the campsite at Praia da Galé… which is probably one of my favourites in Portugal. It’s close to the beach, it’s dog friendly, it has loads of trees for shade and it doesn’t suffer quite so much from that horrible delineated-campsite-syndrome that most 1st world country campsites are afflicted by. They actually have an area where you can just pretty much put your tent wherever you want, which is exactly what we did. The following day consisted of an early morning…

São Gregorio

One of our most favourite things to do when we have nothing to do is drive. Once when we were in Puerto Rico we hired a car and drove around the entire island in a day. We only stopped once, for lunch, and then carried on driving… in retrospect it might have been a good idea to stop and explore the coastline but we were happy just to drive. This small town of São Gregorio was discovered on one of our wandering road trips through the Alentejo recently… A church dating back to 1632 gives me the idea that once…

Its all about the light

Back in the day when I was studying History of Art as one of my high-school subjects we studied Van Gogh (who is still one of my favourites) and followed the evolution of his painting style from the very beginning in Holland until his death years later in France. One thing that struck me during those classes was the fact that Van Gogh made such a big deal about the quality of the light in the south of France, in comparison to the light in Holland. It was something that I didn’t understand at the time… I figured that the…