serra do buçaco

in the early 17th century the forest of bussaco was conceded to the barefoot carmelites as an answer for their wishes of having a spiritual hermitage of their own, to withdraw totally from the outside world, to suit their silent and austere lifestyle, and to dedicate their lives entirely to meditation. the monks not only built a convent but also created a luxurious garden with many species of trees. in order to isolate themselves and their forest from the outside world, they additionally built an approximately 8 km long wall round their sacred forest.

the walking paths, chapels, hermitages and belvederes are unforgettable and still exemplify the rarefied atmosphere of serenity and peace of this very special place. today the forest hosts a splendid five-star-hotel, the bussaco palace [source and more information]. it's a must see, especially in low season!

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road trip

our trip to the serra do buçaco, the probably most beautiful place i've seen in portugal yet, made for one of the funniest afternoons we had on vacation. although the adventurous car ride there along forest tracks and winding mountain roads put a strain on our fiat 500, the drive was recompensed with great views over the moody forests.

tomorrow i'll show a photo spread from the forest itself.

to the sea

mountains are wonderful, but the sea is even more.

portuguese (still) life

i'd be delighted, if i received a post card from portugal's coast with the photograph above. first of all i personally like narrowed sections way more than vast overviews, which is why i almost never miss a wide-angel option for my daily photography. and in the second place i think, that the shown scene is very typical for the rural region between porto and lisbon: resilience, colourfullness, bluntness, beauty.

btw: if my arguments hadn't been just this tiny little bit stronger than tina's, we'd have returned home with three instead of two cases, the additional one filled with various portuguese tiles from the flea market...

lighthouse guard

my relationship to the lighthouse in praia da barra is a special one: basically i don't find it very nice, but it finally showed me the way into vacations again. after being surfing there two years ago, it has already been the second time i visited it; constituting the end of the landmass, marking the beginning of a wonderful, vast sand beach. good to know, that someone is looking out for this important landmark.

broken heart

although aveiro, one of our favourite smaller towns in portugal and the place, where the broken heart above was discovered, isn't exclusively famous for its tourism (but rather its university), even there on the spot the circumstance of travelling in low season has the big advantage of being part of a real, authentic city life; a fact, we prize highly. consequently our hearts were actually not endangered of being broken by solitude.

intersected torre

the torre dos clérigos, a huge bell tower right beside the identically named baroque church, is one of the most characteristic symbols of porto; and it is the place, where we started our journey in portugal once again. we already knew this historic building and its exposed position above the city and the river douro, since we had been accomodated close by in the wonderful poets hostel during our first stay in portugal's second largest city yet.

what was new for us, on the other hand, was the ultra-modern mall diagonally opposite porto's landmark: things can't be so bad in porto/ugal, if a government is able to erect a plaza like that, not forgetting to mention the also completely renewed park surrounding the area. well, we liked it.

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lost leaf - sony nex 7 | sel35 f1.8 | f5.6 | ISO100 | 1/640

dissecting force

hey folks, back from my vacations. first of all i'm going to arrive completely and have a deeper look on my shots. as usual i'll post a couple of samples and short stories you might be interested in during the next days and give you the possibility to participate in my time in portugal in this way.

on the side i'll have to set up my new working station: yes, i was productive in my holidays and finally ordered an ultrabook. so looking forward to the new machine. i'll report as well.

regarding the image above: i have the impression, that a lot of elections took place in the last weeks. besides the people in germany and austria with the parliamentary elections the residents of porto were called upon to elect, too. not everybody seemed to be able to understand, what kind of force the candidate mentioned here...

sooc. high contrast b&w mode.

21 hours deviation

although i used the fisheye mainly for sometimes funny, sometimes rather impressive self portraits of our hiking group in relation to the surrounding mountains, the walimex lens handles serious use cases very well, too. it's razor sharp, already at large apertures. and if you compose the image according to the fisheye characteristics, the results may gain from its speciality.

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8pm - sony nex 7 | walimex 8 f2.8 | f4.0 | ISO100 | 13s

however, tomorrow noon, when i'll board a plane to porto, the sel35 f1.8 will be mounted on my nex7 again. i decided to leave (all the other lenses as well as) my good old laptop at home and do not publish photographs directly from my vacations, but in the aftermath. cu!

“away until beginning of october”