GoMad Nomad Travel

I did not expect to see so much street art in Portugal. Especially in Porto, I was impressed with the sheer volume of exciting, creative, and intellectual graffiti. Granted, much of it is stenciling, either Bansky or Bansky inspired, but still, it’s fun to look at and sometimes thought provoking.

For four days, I walked all over Porto—in the daytime, at night, with a camera, with open eyes. There is something quite elegant and yet at the same time rundown about Porto’s city center. It is without a doubt my favorite European city for its size. If I returned again, I would do the same, walk and walk again—stop for coffees, join the massive street gatherings of youth in the late evening and stay out until dawn. Drink plenty of Super Bock. Soak up every bit of this city.

So here is a graffiti tour of Portugal’s most beautiful city:

Text and photos by: Stephen Bugno

Have you been to Porto? Know of any other cities with good street art? Comment below.

In Honor of International Worker’s Day, here is one of the ubiquitous public mosaics that once adorned buildings and public spaces across the whole of the Soviet Union, many still remaining to this day. Although there has been a trend over the past decade or so to remove some of these monuments and other artistic relics of the Soviet Union, many still remain.

Here a farmer and an industrial worker stand proudly in the shadow of Lenin under the blazing orange sun of the central Asian steppe. This art appeared on the side of an apartment block in a village near Tekeli in southeastern Kazakhstan. I took the photo in 2004 as I made my way through Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Azerbaijan.

Text and photo by Stephen Bugno