Wow. 5 months since our last post, December 31st 2020. This is the longest we've gone without posting our surely-completely-essential-to-the-meaning-of-life travel blog...and for that we apologise for the detrimental impact this has had on all your lives.
This winter-spring has seen a very very busy and non-photogenic lockdown for us, focussing on progressing and occasionally completing Portuguese bureaucracy, and renovating the upstairs apartment down to all electrics and plumbing. Little time for nice walks and photography, so to make up for it: this album is what our first lockdown was like in Portugal. Now we are exhausted and recovering, as Portugal is one of the few EU nations ending its latest lockdown.
For those in need of a refresher, we arrived in Portugal last March, spending our quarantine on a very posh golf course outside Lisboa. We didn't know when we hurriedly booked the Airbnb during our self-evacuation from Malaysia, landing 24 hours before the European Union closed its borders, that we had chosen one of the fanciest, most elite suburbs of Lisbon where all the footballers live (but with pandemic pricing). We moved onto a surf shack up in Baleal, Peniche for two months, again simply booking an affordable place before realising we had found front-row seats to one of the surfing hotspots of Portugal. Shack here meaning a full two-bed house 10 metres from the sand. Result? A lot of footprints left on deserted beaches, and closed up surf shops.
So in its lack of human appearances, this album is an anomoly: a millionaires' golf resort, silent, and one of the world's surf destinations, in season, utterly empty, waves unridden.
A surreal last spring. Once in a lifetime? We hope.
So please enjoy this rare collection by clicking on the image above or: https://500px.com/p/vientiene/galleries/silver-coast-in-lockdown-portugal-2020
Once on the first image, we recommend tapping the Full Screen icon top right.
Enjoy! :-)
~ Vientiene & Elizabeth
P.S. Interested in seeing other galleries? https://www.travellingfortea.com/photography
Our IG travel photography feed: http://instagram.com/radiant_travel
Our US loose leaf tea shop: http://MatchaAlternatives.com
Our adventures in tea and travel: https://instagram.com/travellingfortea/
For any photography enthusiasts or professionals reading: I use a Panasonic G95 (micro four-thirds), a 20mm f1.7 pancake and 42.5mm f1.7 portrait lens. In terms of zooms I have a 12-60mm f3.5-5.6 standard zoom and a 45-200mm f4-5.6 telescopic. (For all figures double focal length to get a 35mm full-frame field-of-view equivalent)
The best camera is the one you have with you!