Portugal Adventures: Day 6 -

It was a bit of a rough night. Although our room had an air conditioner, it was not vented so there was only so much cooling to be had. We both woke up in a pool of sweat at 4:00 in the morning. We decided to open all the windows and fell back asleep within the hour and got plenty of cool enough sleep. We awoke to a breakfast of plenty. Besides a fresh loaf of bread and the usual ham and cheeses we had home made apricot jam, home made yogurt and this coconut custard cake which was fab. Also cherries and apricots grown in the vineyard and some sort of fruit that looked apricotish but had 3 seeds. It was very sweet and good. We felt more than ready to head our into the day.

Here are a couple of pictures of a common area right off our room which had been the original kitchen.

Initially we had intended to go to a winery for a 10:00 tour but we had over imbibed the night before and it was threatening rain and this particular tour spent half an hour in the vineyard. Instead, we ventured to the town of Lamego where we got lost and ended up here. It's hard to describe just how dramatic the settings of all of these cathedrals are. This isn't even the cathedral we went to see! There was a service going on so we only peeked inside but be assured, there were plenty of baby heads.

In the back court yard there were two trees which were the opposite of bonsai.

Told you.

Here's a full wreath of baby heads.

Back down in the town was this twelfth century beauty.

This is the view from the down town esplanade looking up toward the first church we went to.

Closer up.

After our time in Lamego we took a long and switchbacked drive down the mountain to road n222 which was voted a few years back as the most beautiful drive in the world. We were headed to Pinhao but saw people at this little roadside restaurant and decided to stop for lunch. Though it was 95 degrees outside, the shade was ok.

I've never had so much food they actually brought another table but here it is. Bread and olives. Pork steak and fries. Some sort of river fish grilled with potatoes. Rice for some reason. And wine they make themselves which was fantastic. Oh, and a salad - romaine, tomatoes and onions.

Here is a close up of their wine. It must not be filtered. They said it wasn't a vinho verde but it was so bubbly it should have been called a sparking wine (:spumante: in Portuguese.)

The river fish were fried and soaking in olive oil. The idea was to eat the whole thing and the heads were actually crunchy and good but you could only eat so many.

Oh the carnage.

Rebecca got a little bit of oil on her shirt so she spent a bit of time in the outside toilet doing some work. After a while I got back in the car to cool it down. She got in the car after a while and said, "Can you see where I washed it?" I looked over and this is what I saw!

We drove down to Pinhao and decided to take a one hour trip in a traditional boat which used to haul barrels of wine down the Douro.

The next few pictures are from Quinta do Bonfim owned by the Symington family where they make port for Warres and Grahams and Dow and Cockburne and Pratts. They make a lot of port.

We tried a dry white (no bueno) a 10 year tawny and a ruby. They were both very good.

When we got back to our room, our hosts had left us a small bottle of tawny port from their vineyard. It was delicious. The little black balls were plums we picked at the Quinto do Bonfim. Unbelievable. We would have stolen more of them had we been able to carry them. We also stole a fig but it was funky.