Hotel Parque Lamego

... a unique rose port. Yum!! After our 3 hour tour (we were invited to stay longer) we headed down to the pool attached to the campground. 1.30 euro later we ...

... pleasant town of São João da Pesqueira. St John the fisherman. After some looking we found the campground near the firestation. Why were we here?! Because Everett had via Twitter arrange for a port/wine tour at Vinoquel one of 100 port makers in the world. We were the only campers in the place and enjoyed strolling through the sleepy town and an early night.     

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The solution to this state of affairs? To consult the blue book again and discover that the supposedly pleasant town of Lamego was only half an hour by bus from Regua. The problem? Finding the bus stop and relevant bus. We ended up in a protracted discussion with a coach-load of Portugese tourists who, though helpful, knew as much about the local timetables as I did. We all concurred that the bus stop was directly ...

... begin to describe. The quinta is set high above the Douro River, and has views of the miles and miles of vineyards nearby. I was joined by two other couples joined me outside who were staying at the quinta after a while. The people whom I met were from all over the place-Belgium, England, France, Spain, Germany, Portugal, etc. Luckily many of the guests spoke English, and we were able to converse for quite some time. It was ...

On the 18th of September I left Porto to cycle to a little village called Pedra Vedra, between Amarante and Villa Real. Since January this year two dutch friends (Leo and Joke) of mine are renting a cozy house here. Their aim is to start an self sustainable ecovillage in this area, which is integrated in the local community. At the moment they are looking for ...

... hills, good luck to them! We went back into Pinhao for dinner and had a great meal of boar, salad, chips again (mega portions) and beer and drinks for €10 ea, great. Back to the Hotel before another movie (we have quite a collection of movies with jackets in foreign languages (Has English on the DVD so all good) and bed. The next morning, we were eager to get away, we were sick of winding roads and soon found ourselves on straighter roads, on top of the hills. We were really ...

... corpse of some martyr). Outside we enjoyed strolling through the well-kept gardens. No sprouts yet on the vines, but that´ll change soon. Back in town we had a great time walking around this small university town with lots of car-free streets. A coffee here, a pastry there, a beer here. We finally took time to chill out. Next up: Porto´s riverside charms and wine cellars.

amazingly beautiful area with a river running thru green hills, dotted with small portugese white washed villages and vineyards which are dug into the siderd of teh hills. the rain didn't stop us from doing a couple of winery tours and climbing up 600 odd steps to see a beautiful church.... although we did find ourselves inside bars and bakeries samling portugals finest ports and pastries .... and the chinese restaurant of course (habits die hard).

... previous itinerary. All along the roads grapes grow - not as we know them in tamed, wired rows, but randomly, luxuriantly, wound up telephone poles, creeping along the ground or providing shade cover for the vegetable fields marked by crumbling stone walls. On the flat, if there isn't a house, a tumble down stone cottage or an onion-domed church on it the land is thick with corn, potatoes, tee-pees of runner beans, artichokes, broccoli and cabbages, all planted ...

... was in Quinta do Vallado, Miguel who is a gourmet, love the wines made there. As we got into the winery we discover that they do not have a tourist program. But we were very lucky, because one of the owners were there, and he was very polite to allow us making a quickly visit to their wine "factory", with him explaining the process. And in the end he gave us 4 bottle of his wines. Next stop: Porto