“Be the opener of doors for such as come after thee” Ralph Waldo Emerson
I thought I would do something a little different for this letter – so this is more of a photo-blog – lots of photos and not much chatting! (I can hear you sigh with relief from here!)
I am fascinated by the doors, doorways, and door furniture you see all over the Algarve. We often hurry past things that can make fantastic photographs, and Dave and I can often been seen shooting ‘strange’ things and getting quizzical looks from passers-by. Doors would be one of those things!
So here are some of our favourite shots – with the occasional explanation!
Have to admit that it’s the old buildings and doors that fascinate me most – all that peeling paint and texture..
Door knockers are great out here too…
although having two seems a little greedy – and which one do you use?!
The fishermen’s cottages out here are fascinating – often just a shed with a tin roof and usually an old comfy chair inside…
I love this ‘Wendy house’ fishermen’s cottage:
and it’s a great place to be a cat and wait for the day’s catch to arrive…
Even the door handles out here are often worth a second look:
And the carvings around architraves are often incredibly detailed and beautiful, even on small properties…
And some doorways like this one don’t even go anywhere anymore!
You often see keys hanging in the outside of front doors – especially in the villages – how trusting and what a sharp contrast to most, if not all of the UK today…
(We pixellated out the photo on the keyring – just in case!)
Churches often have extremely impressive doorways – this one is a small side door at Silves Cathedral (it’s enormous!) and dated 1781
There are also lots of lovely renovated houses, and often much love and care has gone into this work:
The one above is from the amazing little restored village of Pedralva.
So there you have it – a photo-blog of doors! Hope you enjoyed the tour!
and I’ve saved my favourite shot til the end:
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Love it, have the same fascination with the Doors of Portugal and have a similar collection of photographs as well.
thanks Nicky – glad you liked them – thanks for visiting and commenting
would love to see some of your photos too!
I love this, Alyson. I too have a fascination with doors and knockers and have a whole folder full of photos waiting to be put together into a photo essay. I’ll let you know when I find time to publish it 🙂
that would be lovely to see! I’m glad I’m not the only one who takes ‘different’ photos – we do get some funny looks sometimes – especially when I send Dave out with a brief like ‘can you shoot lots of doors for me please!” 😉
he’s started taking photos now and shouting “that’ll be for ‘G’ in the alphabet” …. when I haven’t even thought about G yet!!! 🙂
This could be an endless post couldn’t it? We’re addicted too and I might well have done a d for doors myself if I wasn’t still pulling C together. Have you seen any of Jane Gibbon’s work? Me and Michael seldom buy artwork or photography, largely because we can’t agree on it, but she has a series of “doors and windows” and we have 3 of them hanging in our living room!
Lovely post.
oh you can do D is for Doors too – then we can compare notes and pictures! would love to see some of yours
and thanks for the link to a new artist too – off to check her out! 😉
P.S Haven’t heard of Pedralva- is it near you?
Hi Jo – check out this link – Dave found out about it – it’s a very interesting story… it’s sort of north of Budens on the map!
How cool! Such character the doors have.
thanks for visiting – and glad you liked them – we have quite a collection of photos – it was quite hard to narrow things down!
Do you know that the “hand” door knockers are called “Mãos de Fátima” and are one more sign from the arab heritage in Portugal?
thanks Fernanda – I didn’t know that! – thank you so much for sharing that with me (and the blog!) – I have always just found them fascinating to look at
Now I know that they are ‘hands’ of Fatima (I hope I got that translation right!) – so now they are even more special 🙂
Interesting photos, I have two pictures that I made out of postcards I got of doors and ornamental wrought iron balconies from Central Portugal. Such a variety!
thanks Sami – glad you like them – it was a lovely post to put together
I don’t know they’re so many kind of doors until I saw this post. 😉
Will try to take picture of doors next time.
Thanks for the idea my friend.
thank you! glad you liked it – thanks for visiting and commenting 🙂
there are lots more than this – I had to choose from a LOT of photos! it just seems to be something we always photograph!
I did enjoy the tour! Isn’t it funny how old doors make for great photos? I love the handles as well.
thanks! we have quite a collection of shots like this – I think I might do more blog posts like this one!
Love the doors – also one of my photographic passions especially the blue doors of the Greek Islands.
thanks – yes there is something lovely about sunlight on a bright blue door isn’t there?
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I have a love for doors too (an obsession really). Gorgeous photos!
thanks! I have been pleasantly surprised how many people have liked this post – seems I’m not the only one who likes to photograph doors! 🙂
thanks for visiting and commenting
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Love it! Really beautiful photos. I’ve just found you’re blog and have read it all in one sitting 🙂
well – welcome! and blimey!!! you must have spent quite a while there reading! 🙂