Porto and Port Wine

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Our first stop in Portugal was Chaves, a small town just over the border from Spain. It was primarily a place to sleep on our way to Porto but it still light when we arrived so we walked around town and saw the Roman Bridge and the remains of the fort. To be honest, there was not much else to see.

The next day we took the scenic route. Despite the proximity to Spain, the landscape was very different. It was much drier and there were fewer trees. In addition there is a tremendous amount of litter and the people are not dressed as nicely as Spain; the country feels just a bit poorer.

Our next destination was Porto but the guidebook warned us against driving in Porto so we found a hotel in a town about 45 minutes away by commuter train called Ville do Conde.

Ville do Conde is a pleasant seaside fishing village. We spent a couple of hours wandering the streets and saw a 400 year old sailing ship and a sailor’s Chapel. We walked out to the beach and saw a Bride and Groom getting photos taken and a star shaped fort that has been converted into a hotel. Finally we visited the well-preserved remains of a Roman Aqueduct. It runs right through the center of town, extends for a half kilometer and is about 50 feet tall.

Porto

The next two days we took the commuter train to Porto, the home of Port wine. Our first stop was the Torre dos Clerigos. The guidebook says it is the tallest tower in Portugal and it takes 225 steps to reach the top. The church attached to the tower was very different from typical Catholic churches primarily because it has only one domed nave and one apse. The decorations were ornate but not crass and it had a spectacular pipe organ and ancient hand written songbooks displayed. I really liked this church and put it in my top 10 and possibly as high as number 3 after Sagrada Familia in Barcelona and the Cathedral in Florence.

After the tower and church we slowly worked our way down to the riverfront and across the double-decker bridge Ponte Dom Luis I. The term double-decker is accurate but insufficient this bridge. The lower level is just above the river but the upper deck is 180 feet above the water. It is the same era as the Eiffel tower and the resemblance is striking.

On the other side of the river we visited a port house called Taylor, Fladgate and Yeatman. It was founded in 1692 (yes, over 300 years ago) and is still in the hands of the descendents of Fladgate and Yeatman. Upon arrival they told us the tour was at 1:30. Since our watches said 1:50 we were confused but the man at the counter assured us it was 12:50 not 1:50. When we checked the guidebook we found out that Portugal is on a different time zone from Spain and we had the wrong time for two days.

Once the time issue was cleared up, we had a tasting of two types of Port, a white and a ruby. Then we had the tour where we learned about the history of Port and how port is made. Port wine became known when, during one of their many wars with France, England decided to import Portuguese wine. In order that it would travel better, they fortified it. That means when it is halfway fermented they add alcohol. This stops the fermentation and since fermentation converts the sugar to alcohol there is a lot of sugar remaining which explains why port is very sweet.

On our second day in Porto our first stop was the side by side churches of the Monasteries of the Carma monks and the Carmalita nuns. The Carma church was very ornate and gilt but mass was on-going so we did not get to look around. The Carmalita church was just another church. What was interesting was in order to keep the monks and the nuns separate they built a 1 meter wide house between the two buildings. It is three storeys tall, as deep as a church but only a little wider than the front door. We are told somebody actually lived there until the 1980’s.

Next we visited the Porto Cathedral also known as the Sé: big church, lots of gold, nice bells, nothing unique. The attached cloister, however, had some very nice examples of the painted tiles called azulejos (see the last paragraph for more info on azulejos).

We had decided to lunch at the Café Majestic, a fancy, 18th century café. When we saw the menu we wished we had waited until 3pm and had come for high tea instead of lunch but lunch was also good. After lunch we headed for a wine bar that specializes in port tastings. They had a whole list of ports one could try. We ordered a five glass flight of various ruby ports and spent an enjoyable hour trying to pick our favorite.

Guimaraes

As we set out the next day our host, also named John, intercepted us with his advice about where to go for the day. We had planned to go to the Douro river area but he recommended a World Heritage town called Guimaraes. While we were driving we talked about how far it was to the Douro and decided to see Guimaraes that day and save the Douro for the drive back to Spain. (It is great to be so flexible.) So I read about Guimaraes in the guide book and we headed there. Guimaraes is a very pretty town with narrow cobblestone streets, nice churches, an impressive palace and even a castle with turrets, all of which have been restored. Unfortunately it was a Monday and all the sights are closed on Mondays so our tour of the town took only an hour.

Since we had time to spare we drove to Citania de Briteiros. CdB is the remains of a 3000 year old pre-Roman and Roman settlement. It was first settled about 1000 BC by a Celtic tribe and was later conquered by the Romans (like everyone else). CdB had over a thousand people living there at its peak and spread for many acres. The remains were discovered in 1875 by Francisco Martins Sarmento who began and led the excavation until his death. These people were quite advanced with running water, steam baths and four defensive ramparts. They lived in round stone houses with thatched roofs similar to the ones we saw in Bulungula in South Africa. The houses were grouped into extended family compounds surrounded by stone walls. They fished the river, herded animals, grew grain and traded with other people. There is debate whether the stone ramparts were defensive or decorative but with four of them it is believed they were defensive and these people lived in an endemic state of war.

Douro Valley

The next day we drove to the town of Regua on the bank of the Douro River and caught a small train to a town called Pinhao about 30 minutes upriver. The Douro Valley and its tributaries are where Port wine is grown and the ride along the river was strikingly beautiful as we watched terraced hills and large Port Quintas role by. The grape vines were just starting to leaf out, not even far enough along to give a green mist to the valley.

In Pinhao we disembarked and looked around for a train schedule. We spoke with the station manager (who was also the ticket seller and a few other jobs) and he told us that the next train was scheduled for 2:20 but there was a strike so it almost certainly would be late. We figured it just gave us more time in the town.

Pinhao is a small, pretty town but there was not much to do in the low season. It was a sunny day so we went down to the river and found a picnic table and ate our lunch while gazing at our surroundings. After lunch we wandered along the riverbank promenade then back into town. We checked in at the train station; he did not yet know when the train would arrive but was sure it would be late.

So we walked down the street to a wine store that advertised wine tastings. We were the only people there (possibly the only customers that day) and the owner was a very pleasant man. I wanted to compare the three types of port (white, tawny and ruby) so we got tastings of each. I can detect slight differences between them but mostly they taste sweet to me. John gets more nuances but since he likes anything sweet he likes them all. After the tasting we still had at least 40 minutes until our train so we asked if we could buy a glass of port to sit and drink at his shop. He though we wanted to buy two empty glasses to take away and it took several tries at pantomiming to get our point across but then he easily agreed. So we sat in his shop sipping port and chatting with our host using Google Translator for anything too complicated.

So after just five days we left Portugal and returned to Spain. It was a beautiful country and, like we say after leaving most counties, some day we must come back.

Portuguese Decorating

All of the towns we have seen in Portugal have two decorative elements in common. First many of the sidewalks and plazas are covered with black and white mosaics. They user larger stones than typical mosaics, about 2”x2”x2” but they go on for literally miles and can be quite complicated. The riverfront in Regua goes for at least two miles and is 20 feet wide but the whole thing is paved in these mosaics with a pattern of a star or a bunch of grapes occurring ever 10 feet. Porto is also covered with them and they are quite imaginative though usually geometric.

The second thing is the blue tile pictures called azulejos. I have mentioned them earlier and they are quite common. They range from a design on a single tile that covers the entire façade of a house to a few tiles making up a picture to several thousand tiles making a picture that covers an entire wall. The colors are mostly blue and white but sometimes the artist will add yellow or pink.

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Photos

Chaves Tower
Pretty on the outside with a museum of antiique weapons on the inside.

Roman Aquaduct
Remains of a Roman aquaduct in Vila do Conde.

Ponte Dom Luis I
Double-decker bridge, Port boat and John.

Traditional Costume
We saw several women dressed like this in Porto.

Beth and John in Citania de Briteiros
The house behind us is a reconstruction.

Beth on the Douro
Note the mini bottle of port.

Watch out...
Those senior citizens can be dangerous.

Cobblestone Sidewalks
This one is in Porto.

Azulejo
This one is in the train station of Porto but they are everywhere and very beautiful.

Comments

[Charlotte]

Still Enjoying Your Posts
Beth and John - Just wanted to relay that I am really enjoying your posts. You sound so relaxed and "flexible"; I particularly liked the comment on the wine tasting (John likes them all!). More swirl than usual on the home front (read that as delays) but we are trying to survive as best we can in Colorado. Keep enjoying your fantastic journey - it shines through - pictures were good too with both of you smiling.