Trip to Peru

In a nutshell:

Beautiful trip, but tiring (more than the brochure led to believe). 18 days including travel days.

Our favorites: visit the Uros on Lake Titicaca, the condors, the breathtaking landscapes, the Machu Pichu, the Nazca lines.

The disappointments: the lodge in Amazonia (Tours Chanteclerc changed the original lodge, and the one chosen was of a lower category). Parrots that we did not see. Missing theThe Ballestas Islands due to rough seas.

 

Very good guide from Arequipa to Cusco. The local guides were, generally good.

We were a group of twelve people.  The rest of the group took American Airlines and had a lot of problems (the flights to and from Lima were canceled!). We decided to take Air Canada which forced us to stay an extra, very pleasant, day in Lima at the end. The flights were Montreal – Toronto – Lima / Lima – Toronto – Montreal.

We absolutely wanted to see Machu Pichu, Lake Titicaca, Nazca lines, and the Ballestas Islands.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The tour in Peru was: Lima – Arequipa – Chivay –Puno – Cusco – Puerto Maldonado – Lima – Paracas – Lima. See the map. We spent more than a week above 3,800 meters and crossed a pass at 4,900 meters!

As far as I am concerned, photography was one of the main goals of the trip. I thought a lot about the gear to take. Finally I decided to take 2 cameras, a zoom, a flash and a portable tripod, I did not use the flash.  Here is the equipment I took: Nikon D750 Camera with Nikon 24-85 mm lens  and a 200-500 f5.6 Nikon Zoom, Sony RX100 Camera, Nikon SB 600 flash, Trident TaI456 tripod.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I wanted 2 camera bodies, not to have to change lenses when the zoom was mounted on the D750. I chose the Sony camera because it takes photos in RAW at 21 Megapixels and I do not need a powerful zoom with it. I was very pleasantly surprised by the photos it took. The tripod allowed me to take (for the first time) photos of stars

More details are in my daily log (to come later).

The slide shows

 

Montreal Murals 2016

This year I decided to photograph some of the Murals of Montreal. We have a community of talented artists who give free rein to their imagination to decorate walls that would otherwise be ugly.   This is by no means a complete a complete selection and some of the works presented here were created as part of the famous Montreal Mural Festival, featuring artists from around the world.

It was an excuse for me to wander the streets of Montreal with my camera.
Some of the Murals that you will see in the following presentation no longer exist, they were replaced by others in 2016 (you will see the date 2015).

 

So here is my project of 2016. I hope you will have as much pleasure to see the works I had to photograph them!

Montreal Murals 2016

Super Moon 2016

Photos taken on November 13 & 14 2016  Mount-Royal.  The Moon is at its closest point to Earth.

Used a Nikon D750 camera with a  200-500 zoom , taken at  500mm.

First Prize at TRAM Salon d’Art 2016 in the photography gatgeory

My photo of the staircase at the Art Gallery of Ontario won First Prize at TRAM’s Salon d’Art 2016.

Trip to Portugal

We just spent 12 days in Portugal, a country  we did not know.

Our journey took us from Porto to Pinhao through Amarante, from Pinhão to Nazaré via Coimbra, Fatima, Evora, Lagos with a trip to Sagres and Cape St. Vincent, and finally Lisbon with excursions to Sintra and Cascais.

We planned our trip with the help of a Portuguese agency “Portugal Trails” that made the hotel reservations, car rental, and provided us with several useful documents like a 300-page guide on Portugal, equivalent to a Michelin guide and a “Tour Book” where our trip was planned day by day with the itineraries, suggestions of things to do and restaurants to try. In addition they provided us with a GPS with all destinations already programmed; this helped us a lot.

We drove more than 1700km which allowed us to really get to know Portugal. We did not expect to see that many forests and mountains! I was very impressed with the quality of their roads and highways.

(Click on any photo to enlarge it)

The Portuguese are lovely people, friendly and very helpful. Between French, English, Spanish and some Portuguese words we had no communication problems. We ate a lot of fish and drank a lot of Porto …

The weather was really hot, most days the temperature was above 30 degrees.

Porto : colorful and charming city with many churches covered with Azulejos (ceramics decorated with blue drawings). About this, the main hall of the train station is completely covered with azulejos; spectacular!

You need strong legs to visit Porto; everything is up and down! We stayed at the Grand Hotel Do Porto, we fell in love with it, a real gem! The King of Portugal and the Duke of Windsor stayed there. Very well located in a pedestrian street almost opposite the superb Café Majestic, a landmark and fine example of the Belle Epoque style.

We visited the Lello bookshop that inspired JK Rowling for some of  the sets of Harry Potter  as she lived for a while in Porto. We went to a McDonald’s located in an old café where the original decor, Art Deco, has been preserved. Took a boat trip on the River Douro. Took the tram (very nice) to spend an afternoon at the ocean. Had lunch at the Bolhao market and ate fish. Tasted the “Francesinha” local specialty that requires a good stomach!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On to Pinhão via Amarante, a picturesque little town on the Douro, one of the jewels of northern Portugal. From there we left the highway to take the scenic route 101 that meanders though hills covered with terraced vineyards used to produce port. This road reminded me of the Lebanon mountain roads …

Pinhão : small town nestled in the hills. We had dinner in a very nice little restaurant, Cais da Foz, where we saw firsthand how much the Portuguese are kind and welcoming. The owner offered us a port of his own making, delicious!

 

From Pinhão to Nazare via Coimbra seat of the oldest university in Portugal. Again, as in most of the cities visited, the streets are up and down. Fortunately, the Portuguese built lifts and cable cars everywhere!

 

 

 

 

 

Nazare : small bustling seaside town. We chose it because we wanted to spend 2 nights near the beach and it is close to Fatima where we wanted to make a pilgrimage. Unfortunately when we arrived at Nazare the weather was foggy and it was barely 15 degrees in the morning. The hotel location was great but one of the nights we slept very badly because of the noise in the street as Portugal had won its match of EURO 2016 that day! It is also on the cliffs of Nazare that the biggest waves in the world were observed.

Click here to see surfing on Huge waves in Nazare

A cable car provides access to the cliff where you can walk up to the point where the waves crash.

From Nazaré long road to Evora on beautiful highways.

Evora : medieval city in the heart of Portugal in the region of Alentenjo. The wall surrounding the city is intact.

The topography is very different, no more mountains but it is on a plateau. Drier climate. Country of cork oaks, Menhirs and Cromlechs that we visited. We spent the night in the Poussada Evora Convento, a former convent, and another place we fell in love with. Just in front you can see well preserved Roman ruins.

 

 

From Evora to Lagos in the Algarve on excellent highways.

Lagos : very touristy town with a very large marina. We stayed in a huge hotel complex in front of one of the longest beaches in the region. We summoned our courage and dove into the Atlantic, just seconds !! Brrr… Visited caves by boat. Made a trip to Sagres, a beautiful seaside resort with impressive cliffs and pushed to Cape St Vincent at the extreme western tip of Portugal. Again the cliffs are spectacular.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From Lagos to Lisbon by motorway. Returned the car on arrival in Lisbon, where we took public transportation, Metro and the famous and  very touristy  TRAM 28.

Lisbon : big city, where as in Porto you need good legs to walk and climb! Fortunately there are elevators and cable cars …

We wandered around the old town and spent some time in the picturesque Alfama district.

From Lisbon we made two day trips, one to Sintra and the other to Cascais. In both cases we took the train. We were warned against pickpockets, fortunately we have had no misadventure of the sort.

 

Sintra is situated in the nearby hills of Lisbon and was the vacation resort of the royal family. There are several palaces and a Moorish Castle. We visited the National Palace, Pena Palace and Quinta da Regaleira. Fortunately there is a bus that goes around because the whole area is very hilly and the climbs are steep!

 

 

 

Cascaïs is on the ocean, a very pretty resort, but it’s really mainly the beaches.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back to Montreal from Lisbon.

Click here to see more photos of this trip on the HIL-AIR site in the photography section