Portugal was the first longer trip in 2016 (not counting my workshop on Iceland). It is kind of strange that I did not visit Portugal more often in the past, as a very good friend is living in Lisboa. Maybe it dates back to the times I was focussing only on wildlife, whereas landscape or travel photography was not important for me. Portugal was not even on my mental list for prime photography destinations.
This year however I was looking for a destination in early spring and after my usual check of the picture market I decided to travel to Portugal. Lisboa as a city is covered very well and quite often the quality of pictures available through the agencies is very high. The Alentejo however, especially landscape, and even the Algarve was covered astonishingly poor in numbers and quality of pictures.
After a research of interesting destinations a plan was made and a rough itinerary was buildt. Two and a half weeks should be enough for such a small area - I thought, but I was proofed wrong....... It would have deserved much more time!
My usual approach is at least three full days per location/interesting area to allow for bad weather, orientation etc. and I planned it like that. A bit of Lisboa in the beginning and the end, about 4 days Algarve (the rocky part) and neigbouring Costa Vicentina. The rest of the days was reserved for the Alentejo backcountry. In terms of photography, it should have been a balance between landscape - travel (cities, landmarks etc) and a bit of wildlife.