In the last week of May, a friend and I will be heading to Portugal. I’ve never been there, and have virtually no language skills for that country. In France, which I’ve visited now numerous times, I am familiar with language and customs and get along fine. Perhaps Portugal will be the same. The plan is to fly into Lisbon, spend a few days, take the train to Porto, which is in the north and is in the country’s wine-growing region, then renting a car to com back south to Coimbra, and then into Lisbon again for the flight home. Should be fun. I haven’t rented a car in Europe since 2018, so I’m sure driving will be somewhat new to me again, but it shouldn’t be difficult. At least they drive on the right-hand side of the road in Europe.

As for camera equipment, I haven’t decided what I’ll take. Automatically, I have the trusty iPhone, which takes great pictures, and is actually quite good in low light, but it won’t be my “main” camera. That will be the Canon EOS R, which I purchased just before last year’s Paris trip. But should I take a film camera? I have taken the Rolleicord TLR to Europe several times, and not used it, so I think I’ll leave it behind. Regardless of what film cameras I bring, I usually don’t use them that much. I’d take the Olympus 35 sp rangefinder but it has an issue that I’m not sure I can fix before the trip, plus it needs at least a little testing, since I replaced the light seals recently.

If I can replace the light seals on the little Olympus PEN EE, a half frame camera I have, I might load that up with B&W film and see what happens. That might just be the best plan.

For the Canon EOS R, I will economize on lenses. Probably just the 50mm prime and the 28-105 zoom. I have a couple longer zoom lenses, but these are usually not so practical on vacation. I’m not doing wildlife photography, so I don’t need the longer length. The shorter zoom seems to do most of what I want. And the 50 is probably the best lens I have in terms of clarity and it’s perfect for street pix. So I may be traveling “photo-light” this time around.

If anyone has suggestions about travel photography or Portugal itself, leave them here. Thanks.