Day 8 Porto & the Douro Valley

Today we awoke a little early to walk down to City Hall to catch our tour to the Douro Valley. On a side note, I met some firefighters that had a display in front of City Hall in an effort to increase their wages. They are like Americans and cannot strike. After a few minutes, we met up with our guide Alex and 3 other couples for a 1.5 hour van ride to Sandeman winery for a winery tour and porto tasting. They are the largest producer of port wine in Portugal. The tour was very interesting since this is their harvest season so we really lucked out. We got to see a delivery of grapes starting the process of fermentation. I am not a big fan of port but one of their wines was not infused and tasted very good to me so I bought a bottle to share with our shipmates during our arrival dinner tomorrow night. After the wine tasting we loaded back in the van for a short trip on a very winding road to the Douro river for a short boat excursion. We were able to view the vineyards and big houses on the hill from the river. After disembarking the boat we headed to another winery for a tasting of wine and olive oil and a tour of how they made it back in the day. We then tasted the Douro wine which was basically a typical wine tasting in the states. We tried a white, rosé, and a red. While tasting, our driver introduced me to one of the servers that happened to be a local volunteer F/F. We chatted for a bit and then I offered her a challenge coin and described what it was and how to use it. It made her cry. After the tasting, our driver took us to a viewpoint overlooking the Douro valley. It was quite spectacular. Then we loaded back onto the van for the 1.5 hour ride back to Porto. We had a nice dinner across the street from our house. Then it was off to bed. Tomorrow we take the train to Lisbon to meet up with our cruise group and say goodbye to Janice and Bill for this trip. Here are the pics from today.

A very cool bridge on our way to Douro.

Foot bridge crossing the Douro river.

Main gate to Sandeman


A view of the Douro river.

Very old wine press.



Workers unloaded freshly hand picked grapes.

Our tour guide was a hoot.




The process of pressing the grapes, the hose on the left was adding the grapes that were just unloaded in the previous picture.




Our river tour boat.

The views from the river looking up.





The old way of pressing olive oil.

This pit was used for stomping grapes. They still make a special wine this way but in a different pit. The wine is very special and "expensive", about 35 euros.


The old McClarren diesel engine that ran the presses.

The view from the viewpoint, very spectacular.

Our tour group.

Sausage and eggs, it's what's for dinner.

Along with the grilled shrimps.


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