{"id":41,"date":"2006-08-27T11:39:51","date_gmt":"2006-08-27T10:39:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk:80\/paws\/?page_id=41"},"modified":"2007-01-13T07:28:58","modified_gmt":"2007-01-13T06:28:58","slug":"week-34","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/?page_id=41","title":{"rendered":"Week 34: Portugal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I have spent this entire week in Portugal, specifically in Albufeira, a small beach town in Algarve. But since I am not someone who can stand an entire week just baking on the beach, we have rented a car and explored the surrounding towns along the Algarve coast, and also a bit inland&#8211;partly in order to meet some Portuguese people, as the coastal resorts are dominated by Brits, Germans and Dutch.<\/p>\n<p>The first few images are from the town of Lagos, a bit further west along the coast. It is a major commercial centre for the surrounding area, so I spent a pleasant couple of hours sitting on a bench, drinking beer and taking in my surroundings, while my wife hit the local shops. As elsewhere in southern Europe, much social life takes place on the street:<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"uploads\/34.jpg\" alt=\"6270\" \/><br \/>\n<em>(Canon 1D Mark II, 135mm L Canon, ISO 100)<\/em><\/p>\n<p>This little boy was extremely interested in the conversation his father (or grandfather?) was having:<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"uploads\/34alt1.jpg\" alt=\"6261\" \/><br \/>\n<em>(Canon 1D Mark II, 135mm L Canon, ISO 100)<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Elsewhere in the town, local kitsch art (most likely made in China) was on display:<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"uploads\/34alt2.jpg\" alt=\"6236\" \/><br \/>\n<em>(Canon 1D Mark II, 24-70mm L Canon, ISO 100)<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Back in the centre of Lagos, this little boy was extremely interested in his mother&#8217;s ice cream:<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"uploads\/34alt3.jpg\" alt=\"6270\" \/><br \/>\n<em>(Canon 1D Mark II, 135mm L Canon, ISO 100)<\/em><\/p>\n<p>On Wednesday we drove across the Spanish border, about 100 km to the east, to meet up with a couple of friends from Seville in a beach resort La Islantilla. Here is my good friend Miguel:<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"uploads\/34alt4.jpg\" alt=\"6327\" \/><br \/>\n<em>(Canon 1D Mark II, 24-70mm L Canon, ISO 100)<\/em><\/p>\n<p>One of the attractions of popping over to Spain was to buy some of the most heavenly cured ham on earth. Unless you are a vegetarian or abstain from pork for religious reasons, you have not lived until you have tasted this:<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"uploads\/34alt5.jpg\" alt=\"6359\" \/><br \/>\n<em>(Canon 1D Mark II, 24-70mm L Canon, ISO 400)<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Back in Portugal, around our resort on Praia da Oura there are a lot of cats. They are semi-strays, in that they may not formally belong to anybody, but each cat tends to adopt a shop and is well looked after. Here is the one belonging to the local bakery\/cafe:<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"uploads\/34alt6.jpg\" alt=\"6414\" \/><br \/>\n<em>(Canon 1D Mark II, 16-35mm L Canon, ISO 100)<\/em><\/p>\n<p>A few km inland is the village of Guia, famous for its piri-piri grilled chicken, an excellent Portuguese speciality and the reason we went there. It is a very typical sleepy village; the way this dog and the people in the background were spending the afternoon is the norm:<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"uploads\/34alt7.jpg\" alt=\"6391\" \/><br \/>\n<em>(Canon 1D Mark II, 16-35mm L Canon, ISO 100)<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Saturday morning I went to the municipal market to see the early morning action. And I was not disappointed, especially in the fish section. Portugal is rightly famous for its seafood, and real fish is NOT a shrinkwrapped filet in a supermarket:<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"uploads\/34alt8.jpg\" alt=\"6498\" \/><br \/>\n<em>(Canon 1D Mark II, 135mm L Canon, ISO 400)<\/em><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"uploads\/34alt9.jpg\" alt=\"6510\" \/><br \/>\n<em>(Canon 1D Mark II, 135mm L Canon, ISO 400)<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The last two pictures for this week are B&#038;W offerings. This one, from the village of Alte, is all about light and shadow:<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"uploads\/34alt10.jpg\" alt=\"6535\" \/><br \/>\n<em>(Canon 1D Mark II, 24-70mm L Canon, ISO 100)<\/em><\/p>\n<p>And this last one has a bit of a departure theme, since we are unfortunately leaving for the rains of Netherlands tomorrow:<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"uploads\/34alt11.jpg\" alt=\"6325\" \/><br \/>\n<em>(Canon 1D Mark II, 24-70mm L Canon, ISO 100)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I have spent this entire week in Portugal, specifically in Albufeira, a small beach town in Algarve. But since I am not someone who can stand an entire week just baking on the beach, we have rented a car and explored the surrounding towns along the Algarve coast, and also a bit inland&#8211;partly in order [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":61,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/41"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/41\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/61"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}