Mo 5/12 Our Final Day in Porto

 Once again ... 7:30 am trip to the espresso machine to retrieve macchiatos back to the room, quick stop at the restaurant for berry yogurt and a cup of coffee, then onto the bus at 8:30 for the (last) morning tour.  We rode the busses to the top of the hill where we could look out and see the entire city of Porto.

The iconic steel bridge between Porto and Gaia looked beautiful as usual this morning.

From the viewpoint of the cathedral of Porto we were able to look down into the communities.  One thing that has gained our attention is how many of these historic buildings are dilapidated and totally falling apart.  Under the UNESCO historic restrictions, the outer façade of the building must be maintained in its original form.  It can be repaired and renovated, but it must maintain the same look and feel as the original building. Individuals and local governments spend much money on programs to restore these buildings.  The interiors can be fully modernized, but the task is difficult due to the narrow and strange footprints of many of these buildings. 

We toured the cathedral.

Like the others we have visited in France and Portugal, the interior is overwhelming and beautiful.  Here the amount of gold leaf everywhere you looked is staggering.

Our next stop was the train station which is famous for its tile murals.  The tiles tell the story of the region, its industries, its people, and its modes of transportation through time.  

Things are not always historically accurate, as illustrated by this street art of a cat peeking around a building. 

We walked from the cathedral back to the river, stopping to do a little shopping along the way.  Once at the river we took a river taxi to get back to our ship on the Gaia side when it was time for lunch.

Alice has once again drunk a ship dry!!!!  To complement our fish and chips we ordered a German Dunkel beer from the Food and Beverage Director, who then disappeared.  We sent the bar manager looking for him to see what happened.  Just like on our Norwegian cruise where Alice emptied the ship of Norwegian amber, it appears she is about to that again on this ship.  They had apparently ran out in the dining room and he sent people to look for the last two bottles that were upstairs in the bar. We laughed about it and he suggested we may want to notify our next ship in advance to order a couple cases extra so they will be prepared for her 😏.

This afternoon we just had to walk across the pier to our final excursion, a tour of the cellars of Ferreira, a major port producer.  There facility covers much of the hillside where they age hundreds of thousands of liters of port wine in oak barrels and casks. The company was created in 1751. 

The historic buildings that make up the winery are connected by roofs built over what use to be the roads that went between the buildings. 

Besides being a working winery it is a museum of the lives of the Ferreira family including the matriarch of the family, Dona.  She can be associated with much of the philanthropy and community service of Porto.  Exhibits included many of the letters and production records of the winery dating back to its beginning.

A 3-D map of the Douro Valley provided a good background for discussing the production and logistics of winemaking in the region.

The tour ended with a tasting of some of their finest ports: a white port, a ruby port, and a vintage tawny port.  We have tasted several ports during our voyage, and these were some of the best.  Like us, these wines just keep getting better with time.

 We are now back in our cabin packing our suitcases.  We have a farewell reception at 6:30, dinner at 7, and then we will attempt to get a couple hours sleep before we have to put our bags out at 2:45 am and depart at 3.  While it has been a fantastic trip, we are ready to come home and see our children and grandsons.

See you all back in the Pacific Northwest!

Daily Step Count:  9,280 steps including walking all the way through Porto and touring Ferreira.

Su 5/11 Our Visit to Lamego

Brief Health Update:  Well I thought I was feeling better yesterday, but I still did not have any appetite.  I am happy to report that today I am back to my old self devouring everything in sight!  

Last night at our briefing they outlined the steps that were being taken to maximize sanitation due to the illness on board.  Items included: deep cleaning and sanitation of rooms with housekeeping staff wearing PPE in rooms where people had reported being ill (which included ours), moving the cookies and pastries from the coffee bar station to the main lounge where staff serve them, serving of all food items previously that were self-serve from the buffet at breakfast, removing bread baskets from the table and having staff serve bread, removing salt and pepper shakers and having staff season your food for you, and (the worse) removing the bowl of hard candies from the front desk (although I'm sure they are still available if you ask for them).  All common sense steps that eliminate "touch points" while not reducing the level of service.  All much appreciated.

Now, on to today's activities:

Guess what?  Another morning, a trip to the espresso machine to bring macchiatos back up to the room, and then out to our busses at 8:30 for our tour du jour.  Looking our our window this morning we could see our busses lined up with our drivers waiting by each with the tour "lolipops".  Joel, our driver, is the one on the left.

Today was only about a 20 minute ride to Lamego.  We continue to be amazed by the beauty of the landscape with its tall, rolling hills and deep green valleys.  Photographs do not do justice the the immensity of the beauty.

Today's major attraction was the Sanctuary of Nossa Senhora dos Remedios, a major stop on established pilgrimage routes that is one of the two most visited churches in Portugal.  We started our day by climbing the 686 steps from the town to the church! 

At each of the levels in the staircase there are works of tile art and fountains.  It appears the tiles have been replicated and replaced as needed with time.  We found one that was completed in 1954, and another that was dated 2024.  And yet, they all looked as though they had been completed at the same time.

Reaching the halfway point we were beginning to wonder if we had bitten off more than we could endure.  But, we persevered and made it to the top. 

Construction of the current sanctuary was begun in 1750 and was not completed until 1905.

Over the alter is a controversial statute of the Virgin Mary breast feeding the baby Jesus.  Every mother who sees the statue says "that is not how you hold a baby to feed it."

The walk back down was much easier and more relaxed than the walk up.  (Walking up and back down was totally optional, the busses drove right up to the church.)

We then had some free time to explore the town. Being Sunday morning many of the shops were not yet open.  The city has a medieval feel to it with the narrow, winding alleys between buildings.

The same beauty we enjoyed on the trip over was there to enjoy on the way back.  (Although they usually follow the most scenic, out-of-the-way roads in taking you to places, and the most expedient but less picturesque -- i.e. highways -- to return to the ship).

The afternoon was a quiet day of sailing back down the Douro to Porto.  We all met in the lounge for our disembarkation talk where they reviewed the process for getting off the ship on Tuesday (which for us will mean around 4 am as we have a 6 am flight to Frankfort).  We went out on deck as we through more locks.  This time the river was below us and it took a whole lot less time to empty the lock than it did to fill it when we were going the other direction.

Locals turned out to watch the ships sail through.

Sean, our resident musician was in the lounge playing both classical and popular music.  It is pleasant listening to him play Debussy as we are floating down the river.

We then had a demonstration by the bar team of how to open a bottle of old, vintage port.  Over time the cork breaks down.  Rather than try to pull the cork from the bottle and have it break up and fall into the wine, they heat (with a special iron) and then cool (with ice water) the neck of the bottle so that it cleanly breaks off near the bottom of the cork.  They then strain and decant the wine.  We will return to the bar this evening to taste this 10 year old Dow Vintage Port once it has had a chance to settle and breathe.

We went down for dinner, checked in on the score of the OSU baseball game (tied 5-5 in the 9th), then headed back to the lounge for the evening's entertainment.  It was a group of eight engineering students from the university who routinely sing for fun and money who call themselves TUNA.  The student group has a 35 year history.  

I turned around for just a minute, and when I looked back one of the students had taken Alice and was putting a black cape around her on the dance floor.  (What we have learned is that every student in Portugal has a black suit, a black tie, and a cape).  

Next thing I know, the group was serenading her and two other ladies as the student was dancing with her.  (You think he would have asked my permission first????)

After just one dance, next thing I know he is down on one knee proposing to her!!!!!   Things move really fast in Portugal.

They were a great group, very entertaining with four guitars, a percussionist, and an accordion player (accordions are big here).  They had a dance line going around the room.  They sang several serenades, and some much faster tunes.  They had one member who would dance with two tambourines, able to jump and hit them on his two outstretched legs simultaneously.  It was a true cultural experience (ask to see the video clips I took).

And now for the really bad news.  We have to have our bags packed and out at 2:45 am Tuesday morning for our departure to the airport at 3:30 am.  In Oregon time that is like getting up at 7 pm Monday night and getting home to Newberg at 11 pm, 28 hours in transit.  Pray for us that we are able to make it through.

Boa noite.

Sunday Dinner:  Gambas al Ajillo (sautéed prawns in wine), Chateaubriand Béarnaise, Moelleux au Chocolat (chocolate lava cake).  Wine:  Lagoaiva Tinto Castelao & Touriga, Portugal

Daily Step Count:  7,884 steps of which the first 4,013 were before 10 am climbing the equivalent of 36 floors up the steps of the church

Sa 5/10 A Visit to Favaios

Today I started out feeling much better than yesterday.  Last night I was able to "empty" my stomach which helped to relieve much of the discomfort. Today things were mostly back to normal (except I only ate about a fourth of the food put in front of me throughout the day 😥)

Another picturesque view out of our cabin this morning as we were sailing down the river.

At 8:30 this morning we boarded our busses for a trip through the countryside to a little town named Favaios, a community of 1,000 residents that is famous for two things -- bread and wine.   The scenery driving over, with the rolling valleys, was beautiful (Alice took these pictures, I was napping most of the way.)

Our first stop was at the Favaios Wine Co-op.  In 1952 the five major wine producers in the region banded together to form a cooperative with a common facility for making wine under the sole name of the cooperative.

This region is known for its Muscatel grape (which they pronounce moosh-ka-tell).  It is a sweet dessert wine that they drink with breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  While their most common wine is aged 3-5 years, they are still releasing wine that is 25-30 years old.  

From the wine cooperative we then went into the central village and made our way to the demonstration  kitchens of the village bread shop.  The village is famous for its four-corner bread.  They have 8 bakers producing 8,000 loaves each day.  The baking takes place between 4:00 and 9:00 am, and then each of the bakers drives their truck to neighboring communities where they sell every loaf of bread they make every day.  (Remember, with only 1,000 residents they make far more bread than they need for local consumption).  Today was the first time we had to walk through the rain, and it was really just passing showers.

One of the bakers demonstrated how they fold and kneed the bread.  It is a 12 motion process they use to make the bread into its distinctive shape, each loaf is formed by hand. The shape makes it easy to pull apart into individual pieces.

Our next stop was at the village wine and bread museum.  The museum is a project of the community to preserve knowledge of these two major activities.  It receives funding from UNESCO (which we have come to realize wields a lot of power through funding to control tourism throughout the world creating winners and losers).  

Our next stop was at Quinta Avessada, a wine estate where we were served a traditional Portuguese lunch (their biggest meal of the day).  We had salad with cheese, cod and sausage appetizers, a special soup that had many strange things in it, and roasted beef with cabbage and potatoes.  

Our ship had been sailing while we were touring.  We met up with the ship and then continued sailing down the river.  Tonight we are docked in Vila Nova de Gaia.

Dinner Menu:  Garden Greens with Roquefort, Piri Piri Chicken,  Apple Tarte Tatin

Daily Step Count:  3,475 steps walking around Favaios.

 

Fr 5/9 Salamanca Spain

 Here as the view from our cabin when we woke up this morning.

We were up and on our way at 8:30 am for our day long tour to Salamanca Spain.  We had lots of space in the back of the bus to stretch out.

 

Unlike Portugal, Spain is a relatively flat country.  There were endless stone walls diving up the properties.

We made our first stop at a restaurant for a "technical stop" where they also served us Valencia orange juice (which was fantastic) and a thin cookie crisp concoction.  Unfortunately, as we drove the first 90 minutes this morning I was beginning to feel sick to my stomach and thought I was going to loose it as we pulled in (but I kept it down).  Tonight we talked to some other guests who seem to have similar symptoms.  The dreaded "Norovirus" was brought up.  I self reported to the front desk who asked that I keep them informed of my symptoms.  We passed on dinner tonight and I didn't eat anything all day.   Hopefully I'll wake up feeling better in the morning (afterall, what is a cruise without continuous eating).

We arrived in Salamanca and our first stop was the indoor food market.  There were dozens of seafood and meat stalls.  The biggest seller are the whole hams on the leg.  

We made a stop at one of the stalls where they had put out a whole spread of meats, cheeses, fruits, and of course Spanish wine.  We then made our way to the town square which is surrounded by a palace (turned into shopping and apartments).  They were setting up a week-long book sale in the square.

On our drive to the city we saw many stork nests in all sorts of places.  Some were on abandoned, elevated railway tracks.  On monuments they mount steel frames for their nests to keep them from damaging the buildings as the nests are very heavy.  The storks migrate through Salamanca every year and return to the same nest.

We first visited the new cathedral that was built in the 16th century (new is a relative term).  It was built adjacent to the old cathedral that was built in the 12th century.  It took over 200 years to build the new cathedral, and by it the time it was finished they abandoned the plan to destroy the old one.

It was fascinating to go through one door and be at a completely different cathedral with entirely different altar designs.

In the sidewalk are these bronze markers that mark the Camino de Santiago trail.  

30 years ago they did some repairs and renovations to the façade of the cathedral.  Try enlarging the photo and see if you can find the astronaut in the right hand column, included to represent man's accomplisnments.

We had a 2 hour return drive to the ship.  We decided to pass on dinner and call it an early night.  Hopefully I'll be feeling better tomorrow to enjoy a visit to a small village.

Buenos Tarde!