by Jovelino 

France, "l'enfant de St Michel"

I’m 70 and I’m alone on the road.
That’s the only difference between me and the other so many adventurers crossing the world just ‘cause they love living this way.

Norway, autumn in Norway - Senja island (self-portrait)

 
When nearly half a century ago I started working, I watched the compulsory age retirement at 70. When later I encountered those retired people, I was astonished by how much they had suddenly aged. As if old people had to sit at home watching TV and wait for the end.
I started then thinking: “when I reach 70 I´m going to do exactly the opposite and embark on any adventure; I was born in 1947, so on “April fools day” of 2017 I will get in the car and drive away somewhere”.
In the meantime, I got interested in photography and a dozen years ago I bought a Westfalia, the perfect car to sleep wherever one feels like. Time flies, and that day arrived.

1^st April 2017, I filled the car and left by night.
Wishing to live the opposite way of the way I lived all my working life, my only plan was not to have a plan, having the freedom of deciding each breakfast what to do on that same day. NO TIME, NO DESTINY, and here I am.
One wish: seeing the Northern Lights and getting as close as possible to the North Pole.

18.000 kilometres and 6 months are gone and I crossed Europe from the extreme SE corner of Europe (Algarve in the south of Portugal, my home country) to (almost) the extreme NW of the continent (North Cape in Norway).

Here follow images of this fabulous journey. In this anarchist way of being, there is not a fixed pattern to the images. According to the mood of my day it may happen being 16x9 or square format, strongly coloured or black-and-white, popular spot or unknown place, documentary or abstract or symbolic.

Wales, Snowdonia, “my tree of llanberis”

Spain, Bilbao, sunset at Guggenheim Museum

Ireland, sleeping on the side of the road

Scotland, standing stones in Orkney islands

England, Lake district