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…

Travelling in Porto

We have visited Porto 3 or 4 times over the last few months, for work and just because… so these are a collection of images from several different trips. This city fascinated me, it´s very different to Lisbon, but also similar, in some ways… as it’s also on a river, with loads of steeps hills and narrow winding roads. The biggest difference for me is the light I think… it´s much darker than Lisbon, perhaps because of the weather, but also the buildings and streets themselves. In the south the buildings are either whitewashed or tiled and Lisbon is famous…

obidos portugal

Óbidos, Portugal

Óbidos is a medieval town about an hour´s drive north from Lisbon, on the west coast. One of my favourite things about this place is that it´s completely surrounded by old stone walls and you can walk the entire circumference of the town along them… it gives you a really great veiw over the town and the surrounding countryside.  

travel photography Helsinki finland

Suomenlinna, Helsinki

While we were in Helsinki earlier this year we took an afternoon and visited Suomenlinna, a small group of islands just off the coast of Helsinki that are well positioned to defend the city and had been used throughout the centuries as a military  outpost and first line of defence against enemies. Nowadays no-body is fighting so Suomenlinna has become a popular day-trip destination for leisurely outdoor activities like picnics and (for the brave) icy dips in the sea.

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…

Portugals south west wild coast, costa vicentina

Costa Vicentina – Portugal´s south west coast.

So it seems everyone in the Northern Hemisphere is getting ready for autumn, my Instagram and Pinterest feeds are suddenly full of various pumpkin related recipes and warm woolly jerseys… but summer hasn´t yet left our part of the world and I, for one, am not in a rush for boots and jackets. So what if the days are getting shorter? It´s still warm enough to swim in the ocean and I´m quite happy being in denial, thank you very much. Here´s to summer, may you last at least another month… or two…

travel photography spain

Spanish North Coast road trip – Day 8

Click here for Day 7: San Sebastian This was the last day of our rainy Spanish adventure and we didn´t really explore much since we had loads of ground to cover and not much time for anything except driving. We stopped briefly in Salamanca, which is packed with tourists in spite of the fact that it´s pretty much in the middle of nowhere… and also a tiny little town called Palenzuela where it appears they have more sheep than people… like New Zealand then, only much hotter. And so the story ends… we had a great time on this trip…

Spanish North Coast road trip – Day 7: San Sebastian

Click HERE for Day 6: Mundaka to Zarautz San Sebastian! Known within the Basque country as Donostia, this city was the reason for our trip and it was great to finally be here and see that it was all worth the effort. This is definitely a place to spend a few days exploring… it´s quite a bit more expensive than the cities we visited on the previous 6 days but there´s loads to see and amazing food at every turn. This is without a doubt a foodie´s paradise.

Spanish North Coast Road trip – Day 6: Mundaka to Zarautz

Click HERE for Day 5: Bilbao to Mundaka Day 6. Almost a week of being on the road and just as many days of rain. This was the day that we finally cracked. Up until this point we had been cheerful and optimistic… “tomorrow will be better” “there´s nothing we can do about it so we might as well just embrace the rain” and all manner of positive phrases that we bounced about between the 2 of us. But then, when trying to visit San Juan de Gaztelugatxe (which is supposed to look like THIS) we encountered mist and rain…