Hotel Rural Casa dos Viscondes da Varaza 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 ...

After a leisurely morning and a second day of swimming in the huge pool at the regio (entirely on our own) we set off for Portugal to a random town in the heart of the duoro/port making. The drive was extended by a long carrefour stop and we didn't leave Salamanca until nearly 4 pm. An uneventful drive lead us to an hour plus of hair raising mountain turns to ...

... or not or that he basically couldn't understand a word I said. No surprise then when we alighted to one of those moments when two events conspired to occur at precisely the same time. The first was the response to the question "which platform is the train to Pinao leaving from" and the second was the noise of large moving train from whence we had recently came. A brief review of the timetable revealed the next train to Pinao ...

Words cannot describe the amazing time I've had in the Douro Valley! This area is by far my favorite and everything has exceeded even my most hopeful aspirations as to what the region might be like. On Monday I finished sightseeing in Porto, and hopped on the train up the Douro Valley (I am getting quite good at figuring out the train system!). The ride itself was immaculate and followed along the river the entire way. I 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 ...

... the country hills and away from the tourist areas so the towns were real and authentic with dusty buildings, dogs everywhere and old ladies in black with black scarfs around their heads, great. The terrain was awesome too, it was so rocky and all you could see were crops of old and young olive trees. For lunch David and I 'went bush' and found a rock to have lunch while overlooking rocky valleys. A beer and cheese sandwiches later we continued on to get to the boarder, back to Spain.

... are grown and made into Port. We followed the Douro river upstream to Regua where we transferred to another train, this one a narrow gauge line that followed the Corgo river upstream. The tracks were carved into the steep mountains and everywhere we looked, vinyards and old houses carved into the hills surrounded us. The short 45 minute ride was a real treat. We celebrated ...

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).

... close to where we had started in Spain yesterday]. Only about three hours after the car died a taxi arrived to take us, we thought, back to Guarda to pick up a replacement car. Funny thing though ... the Guarda office was closed so the taxi drove us to Porto to collect a new car. Now, this is the Portuguese equivalent of planning a day at Piha followed by some walking in the Waitakares, having the car break down at Piha and being driven to Havelock North ...

... 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