Portugal was our first river cruise experience and it was a wonderful introduction. Margie and Allan were our travel mates for this one. The tour began in Porto, Portugal, which is on the Douro River where it meets the Atlantic Ocean. The port is actually in Afurada, just outside Porto city limits, on the "other side" of the river.. The Douro River spans the width of Portugal and continues on into Spain. Our cruise sailed the Portugal length and continued on to stop in one city in Spain, Salamanca, before turning around and ending up back in Porto.
Arrival on the Douro Cruiser, our home for the next week, was pretty leisurely and low-stress.
Starting out with a lovely cruise, taking in the sights and seeing how heavily wine plays into the local economies. Grape vines were evident on both sides of the river and were the dominant attraction for miles.
We did go through two locks and as you will see in the following pictures, there is not a whole bunch of margin for error concerning the width of river cruise ships. The second lock is the tallest in all of Europe at 115 feet. Pretty impressive.
First stop was Regua, which is in the heart of the port wine industry. We visited the Douro Museum to learn about the region's history and wine-making industry and finished up with a wine tasting at a local winery.
Today was a very leisurely cruise to Vega de Terron, where the ship tied up for the night. We chose to do nothing but sail.
We arrived in Salamanca, Spain and took a tour of the city as well as a tour of Salamanca University founded in the early 1200s.
Cruising today to Pinhao, where we visited an area called Favaios and is known for their Moscatel in particular. There are multiple wineries here. However, they all operate under the blanket of Favaios and the wines produced by all of the wineries use the name Favaios for their wines. A kind of co-op.
We stopped in to a local bread shop to get educated about their local pride, which is a four-cornered bread (said to be modeled after a cross), baked daily. Some towns folk bring their meats each day to have them baked into the bread. Many residents buy the bread three times a day to serve fresh with each meal. We watched the preparation, participated and tasted the bread too.
Next was a visit to the local bread and wine museum followed by a wonderful dinner at Quinta da Avessada and ending with a walk around their grounds loaded with beautiful flowers.
Heading back to Porto today for a walking tour that included a cathedral, the stock exchange and the Porto train station, famed for the beautiful hand-painted azulejos tiles. Looking at the pictures, note that the tiles on several walls have what appears to be a "gauze" over them. This was done to protect the tiles from damage/cracking during construction at the station.
Before heading to the city, we did a quick tour of the ships bridge.
In the city, we saw a rather strange Duck Store. I can't imagine this is a viable business beyond Jeep owners and cruise ship passengers who like to leave small ducks for others to discover, but hey, what do I know.
The final day! Visited a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Medieval city of Guimarees where we saw the castle the first king of Portugal was born, the Palace of the Dukes of Braganza and the Church of Nossa Senhora da Oliveira, which has origins dating back as far as 950ad. The current structure's construction began in 1397ad. At the church, we were treated to a history of their pipe organ first constructed between 1831 and 1839. a brief concert performance followed.
When we returned to the ship we were treated to an unscheduled evening sunset sailing around the harbor to enjoy the wonderful weather and the city lights. There was also some kind of a festival going on and the streets along the harbor had hundreds of locals out and about with music blasting and people just enjoying the sites. We also did the obligatory photos with our travel companions as well as the cruise and activity directors.
The final picture reminds us of how the truly wealthy live. Their yacht includes a car on the deck. They have a lift device used to place the car on the dock and they drive off for a day of touring. The process is reversed when they return and head back out to sea. I guess they are okay with slumming it in such a small car. LOL
Another adventure in the books.
