Photos from my first month in Portugal

shaunmza (62)in #photography • 7 years ago

At the start

We landed in Portugal at the end of autumn, to cool, clear weather. This is the first time I have been to Europe, so there are many things I found interesting / strange that are probably quite normal to people who have lived here their entire lives.

Most of these were taken on some of the many walks I took early on.

Herewith a journey in photos;

Nothing strange about this, except it was on display in a shopping mall, at the entrance to the underground parking. I am sure this is a Ford Model A, and I have never seen one in the flesh before. I found i strange that such an old, probably very valuable car was just standing there, with some ropes around it!

Run down houses

I was and still am very surprised by the number of houses that are left to go to ruin. There are quite a few, in close proximity to where I live and, call me weird, but it breaks my heart to see buildings, especially homes, is such a sad state of disrepair.

Above are two examples of such houses, both empty and look to have been that way for a while. The lower houses roof has actually caved in and is quite overgrown.

Not really run down, but the shutters are quite interesting, I had never seen shutters on a house in South Africa. This is the cheaper version where the shutter rolls up and is visible from outside.
The more elegant ones have cavities in the wall so the shutters are not visible when rolled up. They look much neater.

Park in the centre of Maia

While in the centre of Maia, we came across this park. Despite the equipment showing signs of age, the park on the whole was very clean, neat and well maintained.

Other random bits

In South Africa granite is expensive, here the use it as a fence post!

There is corn planted in this field, no gate / access control at all. Surrounded by houses etc. It's not in a rural area.
Still cannot wrap my head around that.

I have seen a few of these, Casal was a Portuguese brand of motorcycle, that unfortunately went under a few years ago.
I find it amazing that this is still on the road :)

What's this weird little building? I think it is a substation, judging by the wres that make their way into it from pylons nearby (out of the picture)

When I first saw this I thought you had to pay to use a trolley! WHAT?!?!
I realised it's more of a deposit and you get your coin back when returning it. Very clever.