BORN TO ROAM
A road trip through the mediterranean
In the summer of 2022, me and my husband had just bought our car and were eager to do a road trip through the mediterranean. The reality was that when we first went to Mallorca (by ferry), we fell in love and never wanted to leave. We spent more than a week there before deciding to finally hit the road, we took the ferry to Barcelona, did a lot of touristy stuff around there and then….
My husband fell in love with a puppy. And we adopted her. :) 🦴
Reality was that it was gonna be very difficult to keep on with our plan to drive all the way to the south of Italy with 2 dogs, one being a 2 month old puppy, potty-untrained with so many long hours inside a car. So we did the only plausible thing: went back to Mallorca ;D haha
We were very happy but left with the desire for the road trip to be done still.
In 2023 we decided to try and repeat the plan (no new puppies this time).
We loaded the car with our crap and 2 dogs, and on the road we went.
Our journey starts leaving Portugal, all the way to Valencia with a stop in Ciudad Real just to sleep and leaving in the morning.
In Valencia we always visit some friends and from there we take the ferry to Mallorca, and this is where the danger is. We ALWAYS want to stay there for longer than planned. There is some spell in the island, I don’t know what it is (or I do know: warm water:)
But this time we promised: No staying for more than one week. And of course we broke this promise :) haha
We stayed by chance in this Magical place called the Bonsol Resort and I never want to stay anywhere else ever. It is a giant hotel with many pools, a private little beach and magnificent construction. It is a true castle inside, we have breakfast in a giant sunny room, they have a mini golf course, yoga, sauna, anything you can think of. And it happened that we stayed there right when they were celebrating their 70 years anniversary.
Fun fact: I read a whole book during my staying there, just to find out at the end that it was a sequel to a book I had not read yet :D
We obviously signed up for one of their Gala dinners and it DID NOT DISAPPOINT. Many courses dinner followed by live piano and opera, you get why we never wanted to leave, right? It was like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, time didn’t passed there although it did.
During my time in Mallorca I did a few shoots around the island, including a very special one with Ali for Billabong.
Tests:
Ali for Billabong:
I am putting up this photo of the car loaded with the massive painting stand so you can see the hurdles of production abroad! 😂
We drove around the island (trying to) surf and painting for the story and it was super fun. (you can see a bit more of this story at C-heads)
This was a very fun day shooting and very special to me! ♥
After a couple of weeks we had to leave otherwise our road trip was never going to happen. The rest of the trip did not disappoint but the memories of Bonsai will stay with us forever and I hope to stay there again someday.
In the ferry we go, to Barcelona. >>>
This time we got to go into Casa Batlló. A few years ago I would avoid touristic destinations like this but now I just want to soak in everything and I am so happy we did this. I was very impressed the whole time and the watery designs inspired me to my next shoot in Nice.
Our journey in Spain came to an end and we hit the road again, this time heading to Nice with a little stop in Montpellier just to sleep and continue to drive in the morning.
In nice we stayed for another week. It was so nice and there was more than I thought it would to see. The gatorade beach and the beach clubs were so beautiful. The one bellow had the best Lobster roll I ever had :)
I also decided to shoot with a model in Nice and it was quite nice, also during this shoot my super8 broke, we got kicked out of the beach club and one of the rolls came back super underexposed for some reason, I think maybe because of the heat that day (second image). Also, so many air planes kept passing by landing because we were so close to the airpot :P
This was the shoot that I felt inspired to do while in Barcelona.
Just t be clear, I did ask at the club the day before and the day of to do this photoshoot, they were ok with it at first but after a few change of outfits they decided it was too much, that we had paid for just 2 chairs (we did have to pay the chairs to get in to begin with) and because my husband was also staying there, he needed to get out of the beach club. They didn’t ask us to pay for one more chair or anything, just straight up asked him to leave, which made us all leave because he was watching my stuff and the vibe was super weird after that. This was the worst treatment I ever got in France and I will never go back to that beach club. I was attracted to the striped umbrellas but that was all they had to offer. 🙃 Notice that I wasn’t even shooting inside the club much, I just wanted a place where I could leave my stuff and someone that could watch over it while I explore the location and shoot with the model. But, oh well… That’s what happens many times while you’re shooting :)
We happened to be in the south of France right when Cannes Festival was happening. This was a coincidence but we decided to drive to Cannes for a day just to see how it was. And it was crazy. People standing in front of the hotels for hours under the sun just to see a glimpse of anyone famous. Most of the times you don’t even see who is in the car, they would scream like crazy, we even saw a girl pass out in the middle of the road :O It was insane. I guess if you go with a press pass can be very cool to shoot but to stand outside, not really my thing. The city is charming though and nice to walk around.
Back in Nice we found a nice Brazilian restaurant and we were there every. single. night. haha :)
They had amazing food, amazing staff and even live music. We truly felt at home (except for the cold at night :P) We also went to a football match to see OGC Nice and it was so cool. I don’t really care for football nor understand it . All I knew is that they had a Brazilian player but it was visually exciting and I didn’t bring my camera to the match but I wish I had. We were super close to the field!
From Nice we also did a day trip to Monaco by train. The road there is so beautiful and breath taking, but Monaco itself I thought it was very boring. I liked the marina a lot and I liked seeing the circuit but other than that there’s not much to see. It was raining, so I think that if I were to come back on a sunny day I will enjoy it way more. Or if I have a ticket to watch the car race!
Honestly I had my camera the whole time and didn’t take many pictures that day and now I regret looking back.
After that we drove to Italy. First we slept in a camp 2 nights and did one day just hanging out at the beach to rest. It was also Luneta’s birthday so we celebrated! Then we stayed in a little town in the outskirts of Pisa, of course we did the day tour of Pisa, it was so nice and warm, lots of gelatos were bought that day. Because we mostly walked and it was very warm, I think this was the favourite day for the dogs!
From there we drove to our furthest stop, right outside of Florence we stayed in a charming Villa for a week. I also decided to ask if I could shoot inside the villa since it was so charming and full of little special corners and they agreed to let me shoot there!
At this point, we both wanted to go further down to Sicilia, after all we drove this far, and wanted to go back home, we were on the road for 6 weeks and starting to get tired.
I had been to Florence alone the year before so I was very happy to come back to this beautiful city and this time I could show around everything to my husband. We drove to Florence everyday, leaving the car right outside of the city and walked all day. Although Florence is not very big, it has endless spots to visit, museums, restaurants, infinite culture and things happening that you can just watch like street performers and sunsets from the many bridges.
We decided not to go further and started driving back home. It was gonna be fast for sure, we didn’t really wanted to stop on our way back but we did one last stop in Sanremo. There we met with some family old friends and stayed for a couple more days, just soaking in the whole trip, laying by the beach, catching up with our friends and, of course, having many many gelatos :D
On our way back, we left San Remo after lunch and crossed France, stopping right at the border of Basque Country just to sleep (once again) and leaving very early in the morning. I remember finding it so funny driving In Basque County, such a different language. I remember the beautiful fog in the morning, empty roads, it was so beautiful, really.
And then we drove, and drove, and drove. And by sunset we were home! Back in Portugal. I don’t think we ever drove so many hours straight, at that point we just wanted to get home and so we did.
Although tiring, the road trip was such a good experience and I would do it year and year again if I could. Maybe we will become one of those old couples that buy a van and just drive around every summer, who knows? I would for sure be up for that :)))
