Posts on Yury Molodtsov

Eclipse

Wed, 12 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Tried going to Cabo da Roca but ended up in an hour-long traffic jam, so had to divert. Still made it.

Cascais Walks

Sun, 07 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Had a quick mid-day scroll throughout Cascais, the riviera of the Greater Lisbon area.

Ocean Views

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Cascais is a coastal town on the Atlantic, just west of Lisbon in Portugal. It’s very touristy but for a reason and I particularly love this road near the ocean.

Leiden

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been to the Netherlands so many times but mostly traveled between Amsterdam and Den Haag. Had an opportunity to spend a few hours in Leiden which turned out to be a fantastic cozy city. Cozy is how I’d describe the entire country — an urbanist’s dream, a place to live.

Seville

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This was our second time here. Great architecture and great food. The weather is also great, +24 degrees, although it’s February (so you could imagine the +45 degrees that will be here in July).

Christian forces conquered the city in 1248 and turned its mosque into Seville Cathedral which is the most unusal church I’ve even been.

Its golden age arrived after 1492, when Seville was granted a monopoly on trade with the Americas, making it one of Europe’s richest cities.

From there it’s easy to visit Ronda and Cordoba. Both are nice destinations for about a day but I wouldn’t spend more. The famous bridge in Ronda looks better on photos but the blue lagoon under it is the actual sight.

Walk to the Beach

Tue, 30 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Chamonix

Wed, 25 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Hannover

Mon, 16 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Hannover is quite a small city and an even smaller historical center but I liked walking there regardless.

Scotland

Thu, 17 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Highlights

Rough landscapes
Sheep
Seafood

We squeezed everything out of a six‑month UK visa one more time, flew into Edinburgh, grabbed a car, and drove to the Isle of Skye, stopping for shaggy Highland cows and an unexpectedly stunning roadside view near Glencoe. On the way we visited the railway viaduct from the Harry Potter films, where a rather boring diesel locomotive was pulling the tourist train instead of the classic steam engine, but the scenery more than made up for it. On Skye itself it was all about harsh northern landscapes, careful hiking on tricky trails, more sheep than people, and a small number of cafés and restaurants that nevertheless served genuinely great seafood.

Concrete and Parks

Sun, 23 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Farm Walks

Sun, 09 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

North of Portugal

Sun, 09 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Surfing

Sun, 09 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Endless coasts

Wed, 05 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Dolomites

Thu, 24 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Highlights

Fantastic hikes
Great food
Wine and beer

This is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been. For a perfectly dense vacation, I plan routes, hike among unbelievable mountains, drop into rifugios that are now basically regular restaurants, then head back in the evening to soak in a spa hotel, somehow not gaining weight despite everything I eat. On top of the scenery there’s this incredible mix of Austrian and Italian culture — schnitzels, pasta, beer, wine, decent Italian bubbly for 5–6 euros in any shop — and here I discovered speck, a Tyrolean cousin of jamón that’s heavily spiced and smoked instead of air-dried (there isn’t enough sun for that), and it’s a million times tastier than any jamón or prosciutto, so of course I brought a kilo home; after that, only the photos can really tell the story.

Venice

Wed, 16 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Probably the best way to see Venice is on the road to Dolomites. A few hours here would be enough for most people.

Azores

Tue, 23 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Highlights

Black beaches
Misty forests

Sao Miguel in the Azores is a very small island where wild nature, black volcanic beaches, lighthouses, and mist-covered mountain lakes starts just minutes from the city and the weather is as deceptive as in Lisbon. Finally saw dolphins and whales there, but still found Madeira more interesting thanks to its higher mountains, even though Sao Miguel has hot springs whose novelty wears off quickly and which always smell.

Porto

Sun, 24 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Porto is a very typical “second city”. Its residents believe it’s the more cultured an authentic version of Lisbon.

Andorra

Tue, 02 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Andorra is quite a nice place although the global warming is slowly killing skiing here.

Nazare

Sun, 05 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Nazaré is a small fishing town on Portugal’s Atlantic coast, about 120 km north of Lisbon. It’s famous for producing some of the largest surfable waves on Earth. The record is 26 meters.

The massive waves are created by an underwater canyon called the Nazaré Canyon, which is about 5 km deep and 230 km long.

It is one of the premier big wave surfing destinations in the world, attracting top surfers during the winter months.

Portugal on Film

Tue, 24 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Lisbon on Film

Mon, 23 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Estoril Classics

Sat, 07 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Estoril has one of the oldest race circles. Senna had his first win here. Now they host shows and races of classic old cars from endurance to F1.

Madeira

Sat, 23 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Highlights

Cloud forests
Sunrise peaks
Seafood taverns

Madeira is a small, mountainous Portuguese island in the Atlantic that feels both tropical and alpine at once. Down by the coast it’s hot, humid, and a bit suffocating to walk, while just a short drive up into the mountains the temperature drops to around 20°C and I’m already reaching for a windbreaker. I notice how clouds and fog constantly hang between the peaks, making it surreal that people once chose to climb higher and build homes there. The island attracts a lot of British retirees, which means decent English almost everywhere, but as soon as I rent a car it turns into a very active trip with steep roads, free‑roaming cows occasionally blocking the way, and a surprisingly comfortable Atlantic thanks to how far south the island sits.

For hiking, Madeira is a paradise. We follow easy but spectacular trails I find on Google and AllTrails, often along levadas—old irrigation channels that move water from the wet parts of the island to the dry ones. We walk through endless fog, especially around places like Calheta and the Levada das 25 Fontes e Risco, where waterfalls feed whole networks of channels and I occasionally bump into animal “locals.” We wake up before dawn to catch sunrise at Pico do Arieiro, parking near the peak and watching the clouds boil beneath me while the light and colors change every minute. Later, in the Fanal “forest of mists,” I wander through dense fog and twisted, eerie trees that feel like a Silent Hill level, and at Ponta de São Lourenço I hike along dramatic cliffs where the rock changes color in the sunset, turning the landscape into something that sometimes even reminds me of Armenia.

Food and small places are a big part of how I remember Madeira. In Funchal I find what I call the best restaurant on the island: a cramped, slightly stuffy tavern that serves simple local dishes—especially espada (black scabbardfish) and prego sandwiches on Madeiran bread—at an almost absurdly high level.

Parks in Vila Real

Sat, 09 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Highly recommend staying in any quintas around and just driving between hikes.

The 25th of April Bridge

Sun, 13 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000

My serious about the Lisbon bridge named after the revolution.

Running a round

Sun, 04 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Faro

Sun, 28 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The favorite place of British tourist to burn your skin and go drinking to an English pub.

Praia da Ursa

Sun, 30 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Most people go directly to praia da Ursa without realizing there’s a far more interesting beach just below. But you need tracking shoes to get there safely. The added bonus is you will probably be there alone.

Waves

Sun, 23 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Porto do Touro

Sun, 02 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Baleal Beach

Sun, 26 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Eurotrip

Wed, 08 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

We drove over 6600km across 10 countries.

Highlights

Turkey’s roads
Mountains before Serbia
Slovenia (the entire country)
Roads at the south of France

Slovenia

Thu, 02 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Didn’t know much about Slovenia and enjoyed it tremendously. Alpine villages, mountains, and a German-Slavic vibe.

The Streets of Yerevan

Sat, 26 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000

In 2022, there are several solid reasons to have a separate camera in addition to a smartphone. Let’s put resolution, optics, and everything else aside. In my view, the main motivation is simply that the photos don’t look like what the iPhone produces.

Those are exactly the kinds of photos everyone has on Instagram, and they all look more or less the same. It doesn’t really matter whether you shoot digital or even film, these photos will stand out noticeably regardless of the quality of the gear you use.

That’s exactly why I love my Fujifilm XT-20. Yes, it’s sharper; yesterday I put a new 35mm prime on it, but in reality I just really like the photos it produces. Especially the color. I don’t even try to grade them much, I just sometimes pick a different profile in Capture One and nudge the highlights and shadows a bit.

The fact that everyone has a camera in their pocket is an incredible achievement of humanity. I’m a bit jealous of people born around 2010, because I have three photo albums for my entire childhood, and they have a magazine of their whole life. Mobile cameras have come an astonishingly long way.

But in the end, the iPhone has downsides both technical (the resolution still isn’t quite there yet) and artistic. Smart HDR helped get rid of the problems inherent to the first digital cameras, but now it too often makes light and dark areas look the same. And sometimes having deep blacks and blown highlights isn’t a bad thing at all.

Various shots

Sat, 30 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0000

It’s definitely worth a visit. You see landscapes that are indistinguishable from Russia, Iran and even Iceland.