Unashamed holiday snaps - part 2
Roll two of two rolls of Portra shot in Porto in March 2025
Roll 2 - Kodak Portra 160
Roll 2 started with more rooftops - two attempts made as I was descending down to river level. Exposure OK, but nothing special.
I’d chosen our lunch spot with a view to the view rather than the lunch, but both paid off.
Looking east up the Douro in the first image below, The Ponte Luis I is Porto’s icon, and the weather was kind with some sunshine.
I had seen images online of the boatyards, but didn’t know where they were - so was total luck that we walked past them on the way to lunch and had a bird’s eye view. Not quite visible in these images are the 90s hatchbacks still in use as daily drivers by the boatyard workers. Renault 5, Ford Fiesta - the workhorses of the late 20th C.
The next morning I was up early, so a different view of the Silo Auto, a slanted light street shot, blurred, so another go - and I was ready for the day. Oh, and it was my birthday, so a bicycle ride was in order.
Hiring ebikes for a cruise to the sea, the route took us along the tram lines and through some of the oldest parts of the city. The corrugated walls of the buildings in the Rua de Miragaia might not be ancient, but the road, with no view of Gaia, used to be the waterfront and a centre of shipbuilding - reminding me a little of my hometown in England, with a similar past.
And onto the last image of our break, this struck me, as to the left were two very busy restaurants with tourists (myself included) enjoying the spring sunshine, and to the right was a large group of students wearing their traditional capa e batina but enjoying some freedom and high jinx. In the middle, and my subject, two businesses, like myself, having a day or two to recharge.
