Having visited Lisbon for a stag do a few years ago, I had loved the vibe of the city and said that I would revisit sometime. So, during the Easter school holidays I booked a road trip to take us down the Atlantic coast of Portugal from Porto to Lisbon.

We started our trip by flying into Porto – This city was a really pleasant surprise. Loads to see, do, eat and drink. After 3 days in Porto we picked up a hire car to begin our road trip.

We went eastwards following the Duoro River through the Duoro Valley to the small town of Pinhão armed with knowledge from our Porto port wine tasting and ‘Fado’ concert, we saw the miles and miles of hillside wineries whos unique soil and microclimate make or the perfect production of small, sweet grapes for port production. This route followed the N222 road – regarded as one of the most beautiful driving roads in the world. (If only I had one of my own cars to drive on it rather than the hire car!) It was a stunning area.

Heading south west from Pinhão we travelled to our second stay in the town of Nazaré. This place has been made famous for its world record breaking waves, attracting big wave surfers from all around the world to surf them. There was not much swell while we were there but we visited the small fort, museum, lighthouse and beaches nevertheless. Being the low season, the area was quite quiet however we can imagine just how busy it could get in the summer. A really nice town and beautiful beaches.

While staying in Nazaré we took a trip down to Sintra which is actually just outside of Lisbon, however we didn’t want to lose one of our days in Lisbon, travelling to Sintra. I had hoped to capture some iconic shots of the area such as this one:

Due to weather conditions, we could only manage about 10m visibility, scuppering my plans for all of these amazing scouted photography locations. This was a real disappointment for me but its a really cool area – I’m sure I’ll revisit at some point.

Sintra is an area in the mountains just outside Lisbon which has a wide variety of palaces and elaborate castles and gardens.

On to Lisbon, briefly stopping off in Cascais municipality – recommended by a colleage, wow. This place is cool and a shame we didn’t spend a night here – felt like the Portugese ‘Monaco’ bustling, rich and warm. I didn’t take loads of photos in Lisbon.