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For those who did not know, there's a mountain range with peaks at just below 2000m in the north of Portugal. It is called 'Serra da Estrela' (the mountains of the stars) I crossed parts of the region by car during summer 2022 on my way to a Poker festival in Vigo on the Spanish side in Galicia.
Further down in this post, there is a series of aerial shots to be found. These were taken during a recent flight from Lisbon to a home game in Luxembourg. 
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After spending almost three months in Las Vegas during the late spring and early summer months of 2022, I spent the rest of summer in Portugal and Spain. I did not make my way back since then and I captured amazing light again when I did so in late January. An album is available further down in this post.
Sure, there are all the great guided tours of Lisbon, the epic bar crawls the Portuguese capital has to offer, culinary explorations reminiscent of the country's rich colonial past, foodie tours by Segway, hop-on-hop-off city tours by boat or bus ... The Lisbon Bay is full of beautiful surprises, the food and life in general are good, while it all unfolds with 10 to 11 months of sunshine a year.
There is a new article of mine online on PokerFirma with loads of cool archive pics and an English text version is available below on this page. Since it is built on a series of hills, Lisbon has numerous viewpoints to offer for great time outs. There is for instance a huge public park in the heart of Lisbon. It occupies an area of 26 hectares to the north of Avenida da Liberdade and Marquis of Pombal square. It is named after King Edward VII, King of the United Kingdom, of Great Britain, Ireland, and Emperor of India from 1901 until his death in 1910. After he visited the Portuguese capital in 1903 in an effort to strengthen relations between the two countries and reaffirm the Anglo-Portuguese aalliance. Up until this specific visit, the park was called 'Parque da Liberdade' (Liberty Park). The name would have made very little sense anyway under the Salazar dictatorship between 1933 and 1974. The park's current configuration and design date back to an intervention of Portuguese Modernist architect Francisco Keil do Amaral. 
Nazare, about 90 minutes driving north from Lisbon is a tiny coastal village world famous for the fact that it is home to the biggest surf waves in the world. When the right tide, swell and wind conditions meat - generally in winter with the powerful assist of the North-Atlantic storms - 30-m water monsters tower above 'Praia do Norte' (The North Beach).
Pics of my winter months in Bratislava are available in my photo archive. Late January comes with a Portuguese interlude and here are aerial photography shots of a recent flight between Vienna and Lisbon.   When I bust, I shoot photos. You already know :-) But I don't only shoot Poker players or beaches. This is an October 2018 shot of the Orion constellation that I shot in the garden of the house where I had gotten invited to a home game in Portugal.
Since traveling takes up so much of my time, not much is random when I fly. When I know the airport and how the wind behaves, I can usually anticipate pretty well what routes we're going to use to take off or land. Yes, I'm an aviation geek, so what?! :-)
 October is going to be a busy one at casa (with no casa) The-Rounder.net!
Check out the POKER TRIPS section if you care to join somewhere. There's plenty of info online featuring new BEAT THE RAKE promos and hotel package offers.  The Spanish Poker Festival still have a bunch of events up their sleeve for this year, so get your agenda ready and get set for one or the other mtt in Spain or Rozvadov during the end of 2022 ... Most of my personal upcoming stops are listed in the POKER TRIPS section and I'll try to throw in another dead bullet or two to support the Spanish Poker community :-p 
When life gives you lemons, make lemonade they say. Life gave me Alex, so I'm not making lemonade - we're moving around and shooting pics :-D I'm spending these days with one of my closest buddies. He is based in the Lisbon area, plays cards and shoots (great) photos. I've shared some of his work already a few times here or on my social media account and we're going to shoot and publish photos together for this trip.
Praia do Guincho drone shot by Alex
Sao Pedro do Estoril
We're in the process of preparing quite a bit of new Poker content with PokerFirma ... but we're not intending to talk too much about the game itself :-) Because there's a life beside Poker. We swear! We've seen it!! :-p
PokerFirma have ordered a series of Portugal photos of mine and I have compiled this short article about the state of things when it comes to playing live Poker in one of my favourite places in Europe.
An English version of my text is available below and you can visit the original article in German to view all the awesome photo selection HERE.  One of the very nice things about Portugal, is that, despite its modern infrastructure and great international connections, it does not take more than a 60-minute drive to disappear into the wild.
Watching waves and sunsets while eating local pastries. Easy life! 
My summer in Portugal is a lot about (struggling at) Poker so I'm not shooting much but I'm posting the occasional golden hour photo or Poker session shot.
Check out the photo section for archive albums if you like browsing. I keep adding some of my Poker trip ideas HERE in case you're looking for travel inspiration. On the way to the super-heated pre-African Alentejo and Algarve air in the South of Portugal, there is a very nice oasis of nature ... yes, yes... and of Poker :-) If you are into MTTs, Troia is your only option at the moment in the Lisbon area since the Sol group running the Lisbon and Estoril casinos still have no tournament offer.  The Troia casino is located in the middle of a natural reserve in the Sado estuary near the city of Setubal. Ferries connect the port city to the casino. The alternative is a 40-min drive around the reserve in order to reach Troia over the road along the Comporta dunes. An epic drive! More info in the FB group. WWW.THE-ROUNDER.NET
HOME BLOG PHOTOS & COVERAGES ART & PRINTS POKER TRIPS CONTACT & INFO You can get in touch or just stay tuned under the following social media links: Facebook - Instagram - Twitter If you enjoy what you see and read, go get more! I curate all recent relevant #allineverywhere content of the BLOG and occasionally from other sources via my Scoop.it account. A photo archive is available via the PHOTOS & COVERAGES section and you might also be interested in checking the social media updates via the links above. There's an ART & PRINTS section too and you can plan your next winning streak via the POKER TRIPS page. For those who care, I use #pokersolidarity and #allin4ukraine on social media platforms and there is a SOLIDARITY section regrouping my blog posts about how the community following this website tries to be useful for those in need. Wish to support us by assisting us to build our network, by helping to spread the word, by donating equipment, time or some spare money? Then beam yourself to the CONTACT & INFO section. Damiano Nigro
With more than 2000 photos published and more than 200 hours spent at the Poker tables between late May and late July, it's not an exaggeration to say that my Vegas summer has been a tough grind :-)
View of the Strip from the Strat.
Yesterday, I decided not to walk along the ocean on my way to Cascais. It's something I hardly do since it makes very little sense. The view is gorgeous every day and the distance is roughly the same. Yet, the lesson to learn in this post is that new ways bring new surprises :-)  Guess where I will be spending some time from next Tuesday ... ;-)  My favourite coast on planet Earth. Beside the announcement of the CNP 2022 schedule, SPF, one of the other relevant Spanish Poker promoters, is also announcing its year plan. 
September was a lot about Portugal for me altering between almost daily live Poker and study sessions in Estoril, walks along the coast, food and photography.
 Seven months into 2021 and some Portuguese have been confined or living with Covid restrictions for almost 5 of them until now. Having my base in Cascais since last September, I am one of them. The latest lockdowns were enforced in January and it took authorities until May 1st to reopen Casino Estoril. The action was great in May but I had to leave Portugal for 2-3 weeks in early June for film shootings abroad. Unfortunately, while I was away, Covid numbers started rising rapidly again and, in a total despair move, the Portuguese decided to confine large parts of the Lisbon area again. The casino has been closed since early June again with no sign of any reopening to come. Trusted sources and contacts of mine amongst the casino management staff are confident they will be able to open again during August but there is no sign for that coming from authorities and they have no idea about the playing conditions they will be able to offer to players.   My POKER TRIPS section got an update!
A new #spfpoker flyer was uploaded with the new date for SPF SUMMER at King's and you'll find info for the March festivals I am planning to attend in Spain. For the rest, there should be some surfing and cash game action going on in Portugal and maybe some more cash games in Brussels later during the month.  Greetings from Portugal <3 Sure, I came to play cash games at Casino Estoril but something is distracting me ... You'll find out what in my Flickr photo archive ;) >> my Instagram shots >> Random Estoril shots >> Beaver Moon >> Nazaré I am staying here until late November before a quick hop to Belgium to play the PB Masters Main Event in Spa. My plans for later this year are still blurry but it looks like I will be heading East. Slovakia and Czech Rupublic for the first half of December, Luxembourg at some point soon ... Rozvadov maybe again after Christmas or maybe some more Portugal. What about you?  Cat 8/10 day in Nazaré. 5-8m waves. The biggest ones get up to 4-5 times bigger here!
Not a lot of action at the Poker lately for me. I have hardly played since the days before Christmas. Just a bit of online mtting and some live cash games and, so far, I am up this year :D
I'm back in Spa at the PROS for a bit this month and might hop around here for a while between in the BeNeLux area. Still have to make up my mind about SPF Rozvadov and the Dublin Poker Festival for later this month and February. 
Every few weeks, the Casino Estoril Poker department comes up with a special Poker event besides the regular weekly tournaments but you might strike gold the December if you are considering Estoril as one of your Poker stops. The Golden Poker Series are stopping in Portugal and here are all the details!
All Casino Estoril events are listed in the online agenda and you stay up to date via the Casino Estoril Poker Facebook Page.
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