Portugal, Part 1: A Night in Loulé

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What a thrill to be able to share about another INTERNATIONAL trip—HOORAY! I was so excited when I learned I’d be going to Portugal last month! We explored a lot of different places across this country, so I’m breaking it up into a bunch of shorter blog posts. After traveling solo all day and night via planes, trains, and automobiles (and reading more pages in one day than I probably have in years), I was exhausted when I arrived. I napped while Alex finished up work meetings and woke up to this sunset from the balcony of the hotel room. Not a bad start to this photographic journey! ;)

palm trees with sunset in purple, pink, orange, yellow

Alex was arguably even more exhausted than me when he finally finished working after 12 (I think?) extremely long days, but somehow we both rallied our energy and headed into the town of Loulé to find some dinner. The restaurants I had picked out from the Lonely Planet Guide (always my trusted resource) turned out to be closed, but I didn’t mind wandering in this charming (and nearly empty) town while we figured out plan B.

street scenes in Loulé Portual at Night - architecture, storefronts, tiles

I don’t know what this city looks like in the daytime, but I’m so glad I didn’t miss my one opportunity to see it, and I’m thankful for my 35mm lens that was able capture it beautifully even with so little light.

travel photography in Loulé Portugal at night

My last minute googling led us to A Quinta. We were a bit late for dinner time (at least for this part of the country) so were the only people in the restaurant for most of the time, but it was nonetheless a lovely experience—and absolutely delicious!

A Quinta restaurant in Loulé Portugal - food photography

Rich dark chocolate + a tiny taste of port = YUM!

All in all, a wonderful start to our visit to Portugal! I’m so into these images of Loulé at night that I’ve already curated a set of square prints for the shop.

How about a Loulé gallery wall?!

Stay tuned to find out what adventures happened the next day. ;)

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