DOURO RIVER

We spent most of Monday bussing from Lisbon to the pier across from Porto.  En route we stopped at the beautiful medieval city of Coimba where we did some shopping.  We visited Coimba University (the oldest in Portugal).  They have a medical school where lobotomies were first developed.  The students at Coimba still wear academic gowns to classes.  However, they have a tradition whereby upon graduation they take off their gowns and discard them in the street.  Male students also take off the rest of their clothes and hang them on the gates of the university.

At our lunch stop we were beautifully entertained by two guitarists and a fado singer.  One of the guitars was a Portuguese guitar, which I would describe as a cross between an acoustic guitar and a banjo.

After a pleasant evening meal of traditional Portuguese food we had a good night's sleep.  On Tuesday we first visited the Palais da Mateus.  Those of you who have drunk Mateus wine or have used the Mateus bottle as a candle holder would recognize the villa from the picture on the label.  However, there is no connection between the palace and the wine, except that in the 1940's an upstart winery paid a tiny sum for the use of a picture for their label.  .The palace was built in 1742 and has been lived in continuously ever since; the family now in its 15th generation.

We had a spectacularly beautiful drive up the mountain to the Sandeman Winery, which makes exclusively port wine.  In Douro the best grapes are reserved for port.  This I consider to be a terrible waste of good grapes and, in fact, I didn't drink most the the ports offered me at Sandeman's

Upon our return to the ship construction forced the bus to stop over a km from the boat.  Walking back was a great struggle for Betty and we are those going to skip Wednesday's tours to allow her knee a rest.

The Douro River is very beautiful but we took a break from the scenery to attend a cooking class, where I got tips on making Pastel da Nada.  Those of you who have eaten my pastries at recent dinners can look forward to improvements next time.

After 20 ocean cruises Betty and I are finally having our first river cruise.  River cruising is quite different than ocean cruising and perhaps in a later blog I'll give some comparisons.