Three years ago on a lovely trip to a special lady’s favourite place.
I think maybe Becky’s quite fond of it too.
Tag: Tavira
Stop climbing over the balustrade
When I was a little girl, we didn’t have an upstairs, so any chance I could, I’d scramble around on stairs and climb over balustrades. I always wanted to climb right to the top and slide down the stairs. Of course I’d get told off, and off course I told my children not to do it as well!
Did you ever climb over balustrades?
These three are all in Tavira, have a lovely time Jo!
I was over the moon, when I saw Paula’s Thursday Special.
Six Word Saturday
I couldn’t resist this, sorry Jo!
The Doors of Tavira
Last year, after a visit to Tavira in the Algarve, I posted about the interesting door knockers there. I always intended to post some photos of the equally interesting doors, but forgot all about it.
Any favourites? Mine is the one that say ‘6door’ when you hover over it.
Then I say Becky’s Thursday Doors post, which has beautiful doors from various places in Portugal, and a link to an earlier post with an almost identical photo to this one.
Like me she found it irresistible!
Do you have a passion for doors? I’ll always remember a silver one I saw in Rajasthan.
Morning in the Algarve
Imagine your typical morning. You might picture your favorite coffee mug. A streak of sunlight coming through your bedroom window. Or the roosters in your backyard that sound off at 5 am. Or a photo from breakfast of a pastéis de nata, a delicious Portuguese egg tart pastry, while on holiday in Lisbon?
This is Cheri’s challenge over at the Daily Post. Well, I can’t do Lisbon, but I can do pasteis de nata, in Vila Real de Santo Antonio!
While I was there, a peaceful morning called me to the riverside.
And here’s a blue sky Tavira morning
and a low morning tide is good for harvesting shell fish in the Gilao river.
You can join Cheri’s challenge here, and see lots of other entries that will inspire you.
The One That Didn’t Get Away
Lisa Dorenfest is Paula’s guest challenger this week for Black and White Sunday. The theme is ‘One’. Last year in Portugal I tried to get a sneaky shot of this guy with his one fish. I thought I might get shouted at, but far from it, he was delighted to be photographed, and very proud of his catch.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Vibrant
There are very few opportunities for capturing anything vibrant in a Devon January, but I did have a day off today and a trip to Sidmouth. This pretty window attracted my attention, perhaps a dainty kind of vibrant.
On an autumn day out I spotted this on a building in Torbay.
These colourful windows were inside Castle Drogo, a National Trust property in Drewsteignton on the edge of Dartmoor.
I can’t miss flowers out when vibrant is the challenge can I? So here are two photos from Tavira, Portugal in September.
Bougainvillea,
and Lantana!
Are you joining the challenge this week? If you’re in the tropics or Australia, it should be easier to go and find something vibrant this weekend, have fun what ever you do!
Letters of Ali
I spotted these words on a wall on the east of the river Gilao, in Tavira, Portugal, and knew exactly where this particular arrangement of some of the alphabet came from. It’s a famous quote from Muhammad Ali, the former World Heavyweight boxing champion, who taunted his opponent Sonny Liston, in the lead up to their fight in 1964. These words look like they may have been on the wall since then.
Float like a butterfly
Sting like a bee
Ahhhh rumble young man, rumble
This is my second post for the Weekly Photo Challenge of Alphabet.
A Little more of Tavira
The day after we arrived in Tavira, my friend and I went to the market, catching the local bus. We had learnt that both the Linha Azul and Linha Vermelha buses stopped close to our apartment, at the Estacao. For a couple of euros we bought a ticket that allowed us to get on and off all day.
The Municipal Market like any other, is best visited early in the morning, but I’d had my walk around town, so the bus dropped us nearby at around noon. I’d been careful to fix landmarks in my head from the bus, but we knew they were frequent and planned to jump on another in about an hour, and see where it led us.
Although it was winding down for the day, there was still lots to see there. The building itself was modern and very well designed.
The array of fresh fruit and veggies was wonderful, but we were only having breakfast in our apartment so we didn’t buy.
Of course the local honey was a necessity for breakfast!
The Algarve is renowned for its fishing, so there was an abundance of the freshest and choicest on sale.
squid or octopus?
There were fish I’ve never seen before, some of which I wouldn’t want to try, the shiny eel-like ones for instance!
I like these though.
There were several stalls selling spices and herbs, some with leaflets explaining the medicinal properties, sadly no English versions.
We left the market, hungry and walked back to where we got off the bus, to travel on round the circuit, hoping for fish for lunch. The sun was full on and we soaked it up, summer at home hadn’t been very hot. We waited, nothing happened. There was hardly a soul around and not much traffic. We checked the sign and our bus map, yes both red and blue routes stopped here, including on Saturdays. After perhaps half an hour we started walking, back towards the market and in the direction of the river, it runs through the town so we couldn’t go far wrong. Getting ever so slightly
Then we were off exploring again, in and out of the narrow alleys until we reached the Praca.
Tavira is a city of white towers and blue sky.
A nice view across the river, to an Irish pub, Tavira is definitely cosmopolitan.
This shiny Beetle was lurking in a back street, waiting for someone.
Here she is! It makes me very happy if I see a bride when I’m in a different country, and just look at the pure joy on her face, I love her bouquet of sea shells too.
We couldn’t hang around any longer as we had to rush up the hill to the Egreja in time for the Fado performance, but the atmosphere in Tavira was great. I’ll be back with some more about the city soon.
Fado com Historia
A few weeks ago I left you here,
and promised to return, this is why!
A few years ago I heard about Fado on a travel documentary programme and was intrigued. Travelling to Portugal, I hoped to hear some. In my previous post I’d been wandering around Tavira and found the Igreja da Misericordia by accident. The custodian at the Igreja told me there would be a performance that afternoon for a mere five euros.
We arrived in good time and the custodian gave us the best seats, she was expecting a German coach party, so before the onslaught there was time to take photos.
The audience assembled and waiting to be entertained.
The Portuguese guitarist was superb,
Then Sara Goncalves began singing, the moment the first note came from between her lips I was hooked. Her voice was so powerful and passionate I could only stare, amazed and totally entranced.
I have no idea how such music could come from such a young woman.
Apologies, I’m going to add my second youtube this week, only my third ever. Watch from around 14 minutes in, I think it has to be experienced live, but try to imagine Sara’s voice echoing around the Igreja. I learnt a bit later that Fado com Historia are based just around the corner, but I think the acoustics in the church were about as good as it gets.
Lucid Gypsy 