Portugal - In Words and Pictures ... Part I

“Live to live and you will learn to live”

(Portuguese Proverb)

When I came into 2008, I vowed to have a great year and so far it is really shaping up to be just that. This quote sums up how I feel about my year, that I am living it and learning to enjoy every moment as they happen.

If you have been following me this year, then, you will see a recurring theme ... travel ! This time last year, I was terrified of flying, I was the WORST air passenger on the planet ... you know the sort who have to take valium before they can be cajoled onto a plane? Yep, that was me. I braved the trip to Tampa in January, however, a direct 8 hour flight, and LOVED it ! My feet have hardly hit the ground since then - a week in London, then Vegas and finally, this weekend, I was fortunate to have been hired to shoot a villa in South Portugal (the Algarve).

Having spent 5 days there, I won't be able to do the trip justice in 1 blog post, too many photos I want to share, so I will split into a couple - bear with me :)

We headed off to Liverpool Airport early on Friday morning (veeeeery early!) and noticed, while we were waiting for the flight, that there was an exhibition by renowned photographer, Harry Goodwin, entitled The Legends Exhibition ... of course, it included images of the Fab Four, but there were also loads of other famous faces, all timelessly captured in black and white ... I just had to stop and take a look, of course :)

Soon after, we boarded our Easyjet flight bound for Faro airport. A short hop, just over 2 and a half hours, and we found ourselves in a chilly Portugal, with some rain, thinking "WHAT?"

For this trip I decided to hire a car, as the villa is situated 65 miles west of the airport - also, I wanted to be able to mooch around the local area and take some location shots of interest for my client. There was one small design flaw with the car provided - the steering wheel was on the left ! How odd ! Haha - man, it's been 14 years since I drove a left-hand car on the right hand side of the road - a MAJOR learning curve all over again, not fun to start with, but not so bad when you get the hang of it.

The weather did not improve as we headed west and I was thinking that maybe we should have come during the summer for this, but we were in for a treat as we drove in past all the massive villas and came up on the one we were staying at, the one I was shooting.

Nice, huh? I have posted a slide presentation of the villa shoot and so if you really want to, you can view the lot of of them here.

By the time we arrived, the weather was starting to behave and by Saturday, when this photo was taken, it was a scorcher ! Of course, we managed to get some sunbathing in, but there was no way on this earth I was getting into that pool ... there would need to be a whole load more sunny days to warm that baby ! Brrrrr ...

And here is the evidence to prove that I did, indeed, rather fooloshly fall asleep in the sun, with my bikini top firmly in place :)

Naturally, wherever I go, I am a complete geek, so John couldn't resist grabbing one of my cameras and proving that point ! Yes, that IS my shiny new laptop and iPhone haha

And of course I got friendly with one of the resort's many wild cats - he's smiling at me, honest :)

Well, that's as far as Part I goes ... til the next installment, avid reader :)