Vila Nova de Gaia
I was going through my travel photos and came upon a collection from a trip to Portugal. It was an interesting August trip that took me from Lisbon to Porto during record heat and widespread forest fires. So much pollution was in the air from the fires that most of the scenic images have a hazy look.
More photos will be posted later but I thought these images from Vila Nova de Gaia would be interesting for people to see, especially if you like Port wine. Many think that Port wine is from Porto but almost. It’s actually aged across the Douro River in a city called Vila Nova de Gaia. The Port wine is kept in lodges for aging but the vineyards are located up the river. This first photo shows Port boats that bring the barrels of wine down the Douro River. You can see the hazy sky from the forest fires in the region.
Vila Nova de Gaia Port Boats
This next photo is a panoramic view from Vila Nova de Gaia of the city of Porto which is the old capital of Portugal. I was using a Leica M7 and decided to experiment by taking 12 vertical photos using a standard 50mm. By using a low distortion standard lens and using vertical format I was able to stitch the images together in Photoshop with less issues. These were film scans and before the stitching feature was available so everything was done the hard way by carefully overlapping and blending. The image shown here is actually a cropped version because the original is so long that it would be very difficult to see any detail of Porto. Not like it’s easy to see detail in this version too but it’s better. The original panoramic is 60″ long by 12″ high and I made a really nice print to that scale.
Panoramic of Porto From Vila Nova de Gaia
This last scene was really neat to watch. These boys were jumping off the bridge you see in each photo. A bit crazy but they attracted a crowd and did it over and over so people would give them more Euros.
Vila Nova de Gaia Bridge Divers
This bridge brings back old memories.I was born just across in Madalena-vilha nova de gaia.as a young man i used to walk on this bridge.Thank you for these great pictures.
Thanks for the comment. It’s a great place that I miss and hope to visit again. I gained an appreciation for Port wine and Portuguese food while visiting.
Thanks for the pic, every years from 77 to 90, i’ve been there in holydays in my mom fam’, it remind me lot of “souvenir”…