May 10 - Leixões (Porto), Portugal

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This morning we arrived in Leixões, which is the port for Porto.  Porto has a large sandbar offshore so shipping has to come to this next-door neighbor.  It was a beautiful sunny day with  a pretty warm temperature (it got  to close to 80° by the afternoon).

This is the area famous for its port wine so we booked an all-day tour to the Douro Valley and a famous winery there, Quinta da Pacheca.  Almost immediately after leaving the port area and city we began climbing into the mountains.  On the western side of the mountains there are lots of fields of grape vines which look like the ones we’re used to seeing.  These vines produce a wine called vinho verde, green wine,  which is drunk when it’s young.  The mountains also had large eucalyptus forests.  The tree was imported from Australia and the Portuguese use it to make paper.  In fact they are the largest producers of paper in the E.U.  The trees have also been a curse to the country though.  Last year was very dry and there were huge forest fires.  The eucalyptus trees proved to be a perfect fuel source for those.  As we drove along we could see huge areas of black, charred trees and completely defoliated spots.

Our first stop was in a mountain town called Amarante.  The town had lush vegetation, a charming church dedicated to São Gonçalo, the patron saint of the area.  Interestingly he’s not really a saint.  He was beatified but never canonized.  Apparently that doesn’t make any difference to the locals.  He is the patron saint for people wanting to have children.  There’s also a very old  bridge spanning the Támega River.  The bridge is said to have helped fend off an attack by Napoleon's forces when they invaded the country in the early 19th century.

Amarante, the old city

Old bridge over the Támega River

After a brief stop we continued on our way to the Douro River valley.  It is in this valley that the type of grapes used for port wine are grown.  The vines are lower to the ground.  As with all European grapes, these vines have American roots onto which are grafted European vines.  That’s because in the 19^th century the European grapes were wiped out by a disease called Phylloxera.  American grapes are resistant to that and they now form the base of the vines all over Europe.  Anyway, the countryside is incredible.  The hills and mountains around the valley are very steep, but they are entirely covered with terraces of vines.  We had never seen so many.

I should also comment on the river Douro.  It’s one of the longest on the Iberian Peninsula and several companies do river cruises here.  In fact there were two ships docked as we drove down into the valley. 

The Quinta da Pacheca winery is one of the oldest, dating back to the 18^th century.  The winery has a hotel and a restaurant.  A kind of oddity is that they have some guest rooms that are actually in very large, very old wine casks.  I don’t know how I’d like that.  We took a tour of the vineyard and then went into a building with old stone vats.  If our guide is to be believed (and I have no reason not to), the grapes are still crushed by foot in these huge granite vats.  All I could think of was the old “I Love Lucy”  episode.  Apparently depending on which wine is being produced, grapes are stomped for different numbers of days to allow for different levels of fermentation.  I think the maximum number of days was 10.  This winery produces red and white wines, as well as different kinds of port wines.  I think the winery guide actually gave us more information than we could ever remember or in fact ever needed to know.  He was clearly passionate about his work.  After hearing about the production we went down into one of the cellars and were served a nice lunch among huge casks and a sampling of several of their wines including an incredible tawny port.

Grapes, grapes and more grapes! The hillside in the background is covered with terraces of grapes.

A granite crushing vat.  Can you imagine it full of grapes and Lucy stomping around?

If you click on this photo and look at it enlarged, you'll see that this is an old sycamore tree that has been carved into a port wine bottle and a bunch of grapes.  It was endangering the house nearby so rather than cutting it down, they did this.

After lunch and an opportunity to buy some wine we headed back to Leixões and the ship.  It was a nice but long day again.  This was our last stop in Portugal.  Tomorrow we’ll be back in Spain for a day.

I'm sorry this photo isn't closer up, but Al's photos somehow won't import to my laptop.  The white circular building is the Leixões cruise terminal.  It has an amphitheater in the top section used for concerts and is completely covered in white glazed tiles meant to represent fish scales.  It's quite spectacular really.