Tag Archives: lisboa

Pena Palace

Pena Palace
“Pena Palace” — The Pena Palace, on the summt of a mountain near Sintra, Portugal.

We missed the Pena Palace when we visited Lisbon a few years ago, so this time we made sure to set aside a day for the train ride to Sintra to see it. (It isn’t the only thing there — a remarkable “Moorish castle” is nearby.) The weather was… interesting. We had rain and wind and fog, to the point that it was difficult to be outside on the castle grounds. However, these conditions also made the scene more dramatic than it would have been on another pleasant, blue sky day.

Later I’ll share photographs made on the palace grounds. I made this one while traversing the old walls of the Moorish Castle. It also lies on a ridge, but a lower one than the palace. From there I had a dramatic view looking up to the summit of the ridge where the wildly colorful Pena Palace sits, complete with dark clouds moving past.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email

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Souvenir Store, Lisbon

Souvenir Store, Lisbon
“Souvenir Store, Lisbon” — The entrance to a small souvenir store on a backstreet in Lisbon.

I am realizing that I have lots of photographs of these shops in Lisbon — perhaps a series of photographs is in order at some point. We saw many of them on walks from our lodgings in the city. We weren’t too far from the train station, which meant that we were in an area where a lot of things come together — main streets, transportation, business and shopping areas, tourist stuff, neighborhoods, restaurants, with narrow streets packed with people, and these little shops.

If I can generalize, there’s a kind of continuum (and not just in Portugal) that runs form fancy, upscale shopping areas to tiny, improvised, shops like this one. We didn’t go inside, as we were passing by on our way somewhere else, but this distinctly non-fancy shop seemed to sell a little bit of everything, with the tourist-attracting knick-knacks out front.


G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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Shop Doorway

Shop Doorway
“Shop Doorway” — A tarp partially covers the doorway to a small shop, Lisbon.

Like big cities everywhere, Lisbon has a great variety of neighborhoods and ways of living. There are the popular squares and avenues, in some places lined with business and expensive stores. There are tourist-centric locations. And there are side streets that you might not see unless you walk and get a little ways from those other spots, perhaps on a walk from one of them to another. We headed down random streets between where we stayed and the waterfront area, and in doing so passed places like this shop.

Not that Lisbon or Portugal are the only cities where you see such things, but there are a lot of little shops here that have this sort of funky, improvised appearance. The elements of this one are striking, including the upturned basket holding open the tarp “door. Inside this shop you could buy wine, candy, and various other little items.


G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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Links: Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Info.

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Curving Street, Lisbon

This photograph comes from our longish walk across Lisbon to climb up toward the St. George Castle. If you walk in Lisbon, get used to hills! We walked down a pretty good one from our lodgings, and before long we climbed the large hill topped by the castle. We didn’t go into the castle grounds, since we had some other ideas in mind, so we were soon ascending and descending the steep hills again.

I loved this little narrow street. Just about every thing about it is charming, The route gently curves, and you walk along pavement embedded with interesting patterns and colors. The buildings themselves are painted in striking colors, too. And, of course, it is so narrow that it isn’t really suited to vehicles larger than scooters.


G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

Blog | About | Instagram | Flickr | Facebook | Threads | PostEmail

Links: Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Info.

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