As part of a new focus for next year, I have decided to hone my skills. Whilst my phone does a great job for social media, my Big Bertha camera captures what I see at a much more intimate level. So for my own growth and to show you another side of our travels, I am committing to do a Photographic Friday blog – a weekly peek at our travels, with my lens as your companion.

In my first edition of Photographic Friday, I wanted to set the scene for how future blogs will look, which will be weekly, subject to having enough content from our travels. I love photography and I adore travel, and over the last 9 years I have enjoyed using my two cameras to tell our travel story. Although I feel ready to ramp it up a gear now, as every time I use my Sony RX 10 I feel inspired by the images I am able to capture, plus I want to stretch my capability and get smarter with my captures.

So each week (or so) I will tell the story of our travels through the images I have taken. Whether you love travel or photography, or both, then this blog will be right up your street.

To start us off, here is the penultimate week of December, where we find ourselves darting from a Wolf sanctuary in north western Spain to Alqueva Reservoir in the mid-east region of Alentejo in Portugal. I hope you enjoy the photographic journey.

Iberian Wolf Sanctuary – Spain

The Iberian Wolf Sanctuary near Puebla de Sanabria is a fabulous place, if you can get your timing right, to see and capture wolves in their natural habitation in the safety of a Sanctuary setting. Check out my blog for more information about the work they do. I loved photographing their behaviours and getting some close ups, which was tricky given the hides we had to stand behind, for obvious reasons.

Brangança – Portugal

Crossing over into Portugal, we decided to follow a route that hugged the Spanish border. We had a fancy that the villages en route would reveal a whole host of history and intrigue. Bragança was our first port of call and whilst the new town is nothing much to write home about, the old town citadel and river walk is lovely. Plus the Aire we stayed at was right beneath of citadel walls. So it was a perfect opportunity to explore. I didn’t take by big camera, although I did manage to get some nice shots with my Samsung S23+ phone camera. I’m not too precious about which camera I use; I just want to take atmospheric shots.

Freixo de Espada Cinta

In what feels like the most secret side of inland Portugal, some of the best driving roads can be found. Winding around the voluptuous hilltops with their archetypal terraced vineyards and olive groves takes you into another world shared with just a few farmers if you’re lucky. Hidden in the other side of the Douro Valley, on the Spanish border, likes this border town of Freixo with its medieval castle and stunning views. Life here, in what feels like the middle of nowhere was pretty laid back with the old men of the town converging by the church steps, the local cafes and the pagodas, chatting about who knows what.

Elvas – UNESCO garrison and fortress town

Elvas is a pretty special place with its 2012 UNESCO award, and for good reason. Your first visual welcome is the medieval, 3 mile Amoreira Aqueduct, the shadows of which we called home. And then there is the fiercely protected citadel, encased behind bulwark walls and moats that are the largest in the world. This star shaped fortress still guarded by military presence is something else, and great to walk around. And if that’s not enough, then how about two separate fortresses; Santa Luzia and Graça. The latter is an intrinsic design of rooms, halls and rooms used as prisons, hospitals and residencies, linked like a maze. This masterpiece is more like a cathedral than a garrison fortress.

Monsaraz

The town that reaches to the sky: Monsaraz is a charming citadel perched high on a hilltop in Alentejo, Portugal. Seized by Arabs, twice, Spanish and finally reclaimed by the Portuguese, this ancient town has the most charming character you will find anywhere. Pristine white houses, a castle, church and walls that keep it safe from harm. Oh and the views across to the Guadiana river are something else. This place has to be seen to be believed.

Alqueva Reservoir

The largest man-made lake in Western Europe is a recent edition to Portugal’s landscape, relatively speaking. And it isn’t without controversy. Old town Luz is submerged below the surface of the water, as it laid in the path of the reservoir’s flow and so a new town had to be built to relocate the locals.

And finally, some nature shots

It’s always lovely to capture some nature shots from around the country. I hope you like these this week.

So that’s my first Photography Friday. I hope you like it. Let me know which photos you liked the best. Kx