A popular tourist activity in Madeira is doing the “Volta a Ilha” otherwise known as circumnavigating the island by car. This is another thing that I’ve wanted to do for ages, but never managed to do on trips with my parents, so once again it turned out I would be discovering the island with Raquel’s … Continue reading »
We returned from Porto Santo all rested out and ready for some sightseeing on Madeira itself, though we only had two days to see the island as we would be leaving on Sunday (after arriving from Porto Santo on Thursday night). Even though I’ve been to Madeira more times than I care to remember, I … Continue reading »
I don’t get too many opportunities to take photos of the night sky and stars, mostly because I’m always in the city and there is way too much light pollution. Which is why one night in Porto Santo I decided to go out on to the beach and miradouro’s for some night time photography. Raquel … Continue reading »
My holidays over the last couple of years have never been with abject purpose to relax, but always explore. Though this is always cool and exciting, exploring in an finite number of days is, well, not always relaxing. This didn’t even change with Raquel if you consider our trips to Portugal, South Africa, Morocco and … Continue reading »
The day after discovering Sintra, Raquel was desperate to show me city she studied in and loved: Lisbon. So far Raquel had been an awesome tour guide as her knowledge of Portuguese history was impressive but considering that this was the city she loved I could only imagine that she would go all out on … Continue reading »
29/04/2011 Continental Portugal was not unknown to me until two weeks ago. I have always heard about how amazingly beautiful it is. One of my Brazilian colleagues once told a Portuguese colleague “Fiquei encantando com seu pais!”(I was enchanted with your country!). I now know exactly what he meant especially after Raquel showed me around … Continue reading »
27/04/2011 Porto: Everyone I know that has been to the city loves the place. My friends who lived there constantly told me to visit. I’ve tried to organize trips to the city from London but in the end opted for other more ‘exotic’ places, because as I thought “It’s Portugal, I can’t be that great!”. … Continue reading »
24/04/2011 and 26/04/2011 Easter weekend was spent with Raquel’s family in her hometown of Fatima. It was a good relaxed weekend with one touristy activity: going to the town of Tomar for coffee after Sunday lunch. Tomar is in the Ribatejo region of Portugal. It’s a central province famous for horse rearing and Portuguese bull … Continue reading »
I’ve written about how I met adventure pants here (click on word to see). We seem to have habit of somehow arranging our lives in such a way that we keep bumping into each other in different countries. We became friends in Istanbul, we then met in Abu Dhabi (twice), followed by meet up in Bangkok. … Continue reading »
After my two weeks in South Africa, I was back in London albeit briefly, as my flight from Johannesburg landed at 7am and later that day at 5pm I would be on another plane, this time to Portugal for the weekend with Raquel. It had the potential to be one those cringingly awkward weekends. Why … Continue reading »
