Bruges

Mike and I travelled by Eurostar to Bruges for the weekend. First time I'd been on the Eurostar and absolutely loved it! Bruges itself was very pretty. I loved the architecture and the cycle friendly roads. The only major let down was the number of tourists and the very expensive sub-standard food! Beer was good though, very good!!

yum!

Grote Markt, central Bruges

Beautiful fountain not far from the hotel

 Looked sensational at night!

canals

canals

a happy deb by the canals

and very pretty shot at dusk

There were some incredible door handles

 

bench features

and detail all about the place

We even found a Romantik Pandahotel!

the architecture was just fantastic

the humour

the art

the sculpture

(in detail)

and

the

street

art

was all very impressive

I even liked the fact that they left a 'map' of the layout of the buildings on the outside!

 We had some time before catching our connection back to London on the last day
so we stopped off in Brussells and had a stroll about.

 I'd definitely go back here

 there seemed like a lot to explore

  perhaps when it is a little less rainy though!

Portugal!

Mike and I found a brill deal to the Algarve, we had a self-catering apartment in the sleepy fishing village of Alvor. I have been interested in Portuguese tiling and was looking forward to taking lots of photos...here's a look at my finds of the week!

A view from our back balcony, looking out on to the complex

The resort we walked through on the way to the beach...I love the colours of the flowers, especially against the white washed buildings. That turquoise is just delicious too!!

A very pretty pairing

need to take the exposure down on this a bit but that's a lot of pretty patterns!!!

close up of the tiling on the bench...

...it's just gorgeous!

Tiling, tiling...

....EVERYWHERE!

A beautiful roadside palm tree

The light in our apartment - clever design!

Beautiful facade

and interesting composition...

More gorgeous tiling

 

And the Mourish styling of the complex