Vigo

On our cruise to the Canaries last November our first stop was at Vigo in the north western corner of Spain. I've been there before (on my way from Madrid to Porto in Portugal) and it rained solidly all day, but this time it was sunny and cold. It's quite a large city and rises quite steeply up the hillside from the port area, so i took the opprtunity to reach the park some distance up the hill for some grat panoramas back down across the city and the bay. The images I've chosen to include here are rather different, with two inside the art gallery and museum and two shots of interesting shop frontages.
In the second shot form the art gallery I really liked the effect of the attendant's legs in the lower half of the frame and the gallery in the upper part of the frame. It took several shots (with a compact digital camera) to get the shot I wanted.

Funchal as a tourist

I've picked these title as these are very much tourist type shots of Funchal (Madeira) and they convey a quick visual impression of what it's like to arrive there by cruise ship and look around the centre, with the hills rising steeply up a a backdrop. My impression after a quick visit in November is that it's another of those places I'd like to return to for alonger stay.

Mercado de Nuestra Señora de África

I'm always a fan of street and indoor markets, so when in Santa Cruz de Tenerife in November (one of the ports of call on our Canaries cruise) I made for the well known indoor fruit, fish and vegetable market (well, it's partly an indoor market) of Mercado de Nuestra Señora de África, on Calle San Sebastian. It's somewhat African in influence and quite lively. I've included a few images to give an impression. Though not as exciting as some of the markets I've seen in the last couple of years or so, it's certainly worth a look.

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French markets

While away in France over Christmas and the New Year I took the opportunity to visit a couple of French street markets. Interesting in itself, this was partly designed to find some images for the latest monthly assignment in The Guardian's Camera Club. We had the chance to visit street markets in Cahors and the smaller town of Prayssac, both in the valley of the Lot. As I only had my compact camera with me (a Canon Ixus) the results were somewhat mixed, but at least I had the chance to take some candid photographs withouth feeling intrusive. I chose six images to load into Flickr and tag for the Guardian group, but here are four different ones. Street markets are one of my favourite subjects, though with so much going on at times it can be difficult to capture something interesting enough and sufficiently focused.

The pain d'epice was a delicious spiced cake, made organically by a local producer, but we winced at the price and in the end paid almost five euros for around 200 gms. It tasted superb though.