Excursive

I'm currently gathering together a few photos from the weekend which I'll put up soon. In the mean time I got a few shots from a day trip I took with a couple of friends yesterday.

Yesterday was carnival day in Santiago, and having seen it last year I fancied taking the opportunity to escape and see a little more of the Galician coastline.

We drove down towards Pontevedra, stopping along the way at spots to explore, hike a little and get some local food, including some of the best bream I've tried around here. We started off at a local monastery, complete with a truly hideous alterpiece, gold dripping from the ceilings and plump cherubs rosy cheeked. Anyway, although I couldn't bring myself to take a full-on photo of the garishness in the chapel, the courtyard gave the chance to take an architectural panorama and so I pieced this together.

The last shot is looking directly up and taking in the wall behind.

From there we headed to the hills and got a wonderful view over the ocean. Though I was on the lookout, there were no exciting atmospheric optics to be seen, but at least the light on the surrounding countryside was rather glorious:

Click here for huge!

We drove on a little more and finally made our way to a little village having its own carnival celebrations. At the top of the village was a hill with a celtic settlement where we sat down to watch the sun set over the Atlantic. On the lookout for the Green flash I set up my camera on a flat piece of rock, attached the camera release and tried my best not to get blinded. Although I missed the Green flash, I did get a few setting sun photos before it disappeared.

It may be cliched, but as the sun was just setting a flock of birds flew in just the right plane to get the perfect 'birds beneath the setting sun' shot, a must for all wannabe photographers:

Again, click for larger.

At the end of the day we headed to Cangas, where the local bars were so full that we had to try the completely empty Chinese restaurant. Chatting with the owners for a while they seemed so surprised that I could talk with them reasonably comfortably that they gave me a wonderful doggy bag full of huajiao, sichuan pepper, on the way out.

Anyway, There are plenty more shots to process, but time doesn't allow right now. Keep an eye on my flickr account and the odd one or two may appear in the next week.