So first thing we did was went up away from the river to the hilltop town of Tabuaco.
It is quaint and small, somewhere that I could easily dream of retiring to. If I ever owned a donkey, and/or didn't mind living so far away from water. After this, we cruised the little Colt along the Douro, and we drove along the main road between Pinhao and Peso Da Regua. Along here, we stopped at a couple of wineries ...... and then Sapos.
Maybe not the most classy, but certainly fun, not just for people, but the spiders seem to like it, too!
I am sure some think it is a barrell of laughs! (oh god sorry the jokes just get worse!)
This was where we bought our first wine. It was a white port called Lagrima, even though we bought this from Q.V Sapos, it is a Qunita de Marrocos wine.
The old lady of the cellar that we bought it from didn't really want to talk much, but allowed us to pour our own tastings. Shame I was driving really..... but we went through most of all their selections that were available, including brandy.
After here we headed into Peso Da Regua, as they have lots of tiles around
and a large tourist office there, we thought it would be good to get the low down of the area. Problem being it closes on weekends! Yes, just mildly insane as you would expect many visitors to visit on weekends.... but such is the life of the Iberian Peninsula, you will find oddly similiar things in Spain as well. So after taking photos of many varying doors and door features (aren't we just a riot! But you should see the looks you get from locals, that alone is a great reason to take such photos!), we were thinking it was about lunch time, but the only thing we could find that looked interesting was a Churrasco (BBQ grill). This was impressively busy, and a great sign, but we weren't really in the mood for either BBQ or waiting in the sun to get a table indoors.
So back to the Colt it was and off to the town of Lamego (which was supposed to have another Tourist office). Not just this, but things we dearly love. I had read it was a home of some regional smoked speciality meats.... hence the lunch you see below.
It is also home to some fabulous bakeries (where we should have had lunch instead of the overpriced meal that we did end up having).
To our surprise it is also the home to some rather charming and entertaining Grampapies, Grandpas, Poppas, Papas, or whatever you chose to call them. Something that I loved about Portugal, as it was in direct contradiction to Poland, is that there are lots more Old men either on the move or sitting around gas bagging and arguing. Sometimes drinking coffee, sometimes aguardente (firewater!) or other times, sitting around a backgammon/chess board or a deck of cards. Either way, it made a big difference to the Grannies of Warsaw and Poland in general.
We actually went to the tourist office (it was open!!), and the lady there was fabulous, she gave us more maps than we could imagine and some great tips and pointers on things to see. After Lamego, we headed off towards home, stopping in at a couple more Quintas along the way. The highlight was the Quinta do Panascal (part of the Fonseca group). This Quinta gives you an MP3 player
and sends you into the vineyard to listen to a rather well-to-do English Gent tell you the story of not just Panascal and Fonseca, but the Douro as a whole.
Panascal olive terraces on the way to the Vineyard
The Vineyard with the Tavora river in the background.
Tinto Barroca grapes getting read to be Port!
Up close and tastiful.
So after this, we came home to a great home cooked meal from our hosts. It was an amazing meal of salted cod with roasted potatoes, roasted capsicums, olives and tomatoes, all washed down with copious amounts of home made red wine in three varieties. Followed by melon and cakes and, of course, port. In all a magical meal, and a great starting day to the Douro.
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