Travel Photographer Sicily Italy

Sicily | Italy

From the Ionian Islands we ferried back to the mainland and drove north to Igoumenitsa, a port city with  several ferry lines running across to the south of Italy. The crossing was overnight and took about 10 hours which was perfect as we slept through most of it anyway. The noise of the engines and the waves crashing on the hull were reminiscent of our cruise ship days and even the smell in the crew area was the same, a particular mix of grease, sweat and stale cigarette smoke that is hard to define but very particular to ships. Once…

Travel photography Murano Burano Italy

Murano & Burano | Italy

Murano and Burano are two smaller islands that are part of the Venice archipelago and historically, Morano is where the glass-blowing factories are located and Burano was where the fishermen lived. Because of this, they are both much simpler in terms of architecture, the working class neighourhoods, so to speak, and quite a contrast to the sumptuous regality of Venice proper. Burano in particular is very pretty and colourful and, to our relief, much less crowded. People actually still live here, the fountains have water, the pace is much more laid-back and we spent a blissful afternoon wandering the tiny lanes…

Travel Photographer Venice Italy

Venice | Italy

Venice is one of those places that I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with. It´s Venice, there is literally no other place in the world like it, it´s breathtakingly beautiful and so unique that you can´t help but feel the love… but so completely overcrowded and expensive and badly managed that it dulls the shine of the city a bit. But Venice is Venice, and as this was my 3rd time here we were prepared for the madness, sort-of. I don´t think that these images do much to convey the intensity of the tourism here because we did everything…

Travel photographer Italy

Northern Italian Lakes

After leaving the French Alps we wandered around the lakes of northern Italy… Maggiore, Como, Orta and Lugano. Lake Lugano shares its shoreline with Switzerland so in the name of in-depth exploration we crossed the border, only to be shocked at how expensive it is there… and when an crotchety old man with more money than brains reversed his (very expensive) car into our van and then just drove off without checking to see what he´d damaged, we thought that we should really rather get back to Italy, where people are just as likely to reverse into you but at least…

Travel photography Venice Italy

Burano, Italy

So in keeping with the Venice photos from last week, this is Burano… one of the smaller islands on the outskirts of this “floating city”. It´s a half-hour boat-ride away from the city centre and much less crowded with tourists, definitely worth the effort of you´re going to be spending a few days in Venice. Burano was historically the fisherman´s neighbourhood, so the architecture isn´t as opulent as the more aristocratic centre… the houses are smaller, simpler and much more colourful. There also seems to be a greater sense of community here… there are less abandoned houses and more people…

travel photography venice italy

Venice, Italy

Our recent trip to Rome got me a feeling a bit sentimental about out previous travels in Italy and a rainy spring day was the perfect excuse to spend a few hours going through my photo archives… and Venice is what I found, amongst others. The first time I visited Venice was in 2005 and it completely blew my mind. I was fresh out of university, on my first contract as a cruise-ship photographer and this was my first trip to Europe, the first time I had ever set foot off the African continent. That time around, I hardly took…

travel photographer rome

Tiber River, Rome

One of my favourite times of day to photograph a city is that half an hour after sunset… when there’s still a bit of dusk light in the sky and the city lights are on and twinkling in the blue, fading glow of the evening. The magical combination of natural and artificial lights gets me every time and by the Tiber river we had the added bonus of swirling reflections off the surface of the fast-flowing water. This was our last night in the eternal city that is Rome…

Rome Markets | Italy

On our recent trip to Rome we planned to do more of a foodie trip, rather than a “monuments and museums” kind of holiday… so I did a bit of research beforehand (and created an entire Pinterest board with ideas and recommendations from friends) to find the best local markets. As it turns out, the research wasn’t all that necessary because there are farmer’s markets just about everywhere in the city, we stumbled across many just while wandering the streets, particularly in the neighbourhoods just outside of the “tourist zone”… Trastevere, Pigneto etc. There is also a lovely market right…

Rome in the winter.

Rome was, of course, amazing… always is. We had a wonderful few days, just about walked ourselves to death and ate enough cheese to last a life-time… and of course took loads of photos. The first time I visited Rome I was completely blown away by the architecture, the history, the way of life… but now that I’ve been living in Europe for 3 years, this time around it didn’t seem quite so foreign. The Italian lifestyle is very similar to the Portuguese (the coffee is better but the driving is much worse, which I didn’t think was possible) and…

Travel photography Italy

Rome!

We’re off to Rome soon for a week or so and I am super excited, I love this city and can’t wait to visit her again. This trip is like the perfect combination of all the things I love most in life… travelling, taking photos and eating… bring on the pecorino! We’ve done all the touristy stuff before so if anyone has great recommendations for off the beaten track things to do in Rome, or know great restaurants where they don’t have the menu in English, please leave a comment, I would love to hear your thoughts!