Douro Valley, Portugal

October 15, 2023

Douro Valley, Portugal

We had 7 days in the Douro Valley, a little longer than usual to allow us to take a holiday from our holiday as it were (and to do some life admin...boo!). The apartment we'd booked turned out to be perfect for that, containing one of my favourite things: a table to sit at overlooking a captivating view.

The Douro Valley is the oldest demarcated wine region in the world and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We stayed in a town to the eastern end of the valley, which had much more of a busy, ‘lived in’ landscape than I was expecting. There are layer upon layer of rolling hills with the Douro River lazily snaking through. Every which way you look are small towns and villages, vineyards, forested areas and the odd quarry, as well as more wind farms than I’ve ever seen. The whole vista is pockmarked by phone towers and criss-crossed with power lines. There’s the odd large manor house and many churches sprinkled liberally across the landscape, as well as many decrepit buildings. The roads are impossibly curving, narrow and steep, some being part of the infamous N222, one of the most scenic roads in Portugal (some say the world)!

So many wind turbines!

We had some really lovely times here. A few standout moments:

Driving

Driving in the Douro Valley is a ‘heart in mouth’ experience, especially when: (1) you’re new to driving on the right hand side of the road, (2) the roads are narrow and very winding, (3) the verges are loosely defined at best and precipitous at worst, (4) there are few if any clear road lines/markings, (5) other drivers seem fearless! I was an ok driver but a terrible back-seat driver for poor Sim! Very picturesque though (when we could peel our eyes away from the road)!

Lamego

Key learning from our trip to this lovely town - always do a satellite layer check of the route provided by Google Maps. Our trip here brought us directly to the cathedral down a really REALLY narrow street. The options to get out again were a little variable depending on how double-parked the rest of the vehicles were, but it did turn out to be an excellent parking spot for the day!

Google maps brought us down here…

And this was our way out!

Key features of Lamego are the long central street and garden, complete with fountains and statues depicting the four seasons, at the top of which begins the long, grand staircase to the fantastic Santuario de Nossa Senhora dos Remedios, a Catholic church on top of a hill, reached by walking up said stairs set within a wood and decorated with painted tiles, fancy statues and fountains.

As has happened a number of times now, while in the town we discovered there was a festival on and we happened to be there on the flagship night, so we decided to stick around for the parade (scheduled to start at 10pm. 10PM!). We went to the local pool to cool down, and then wandered the stalls, eating Pastel de Nata and crazy churros.

Seriously whack churros

Also in Lamego, I learn for the first time that my partner of nearly 13 years loves sangria! I thought I’d ordered a glass, but it was a carafe (this is not the only time this happens to me when ordering alcohol in Portugal - I swear it’s not intentional, I’m just not good at looking at numbers, despite 9 years of economics at uni!). So Sim stepped in to help out. If you know Sim, you know how quickly he eats, which is also how quickly he drinks, so queue some funny light booziness to Aelie’s and my bemusement.

Woozy Sim (not dissimilar to non-woozy Sim)

Another learning about Portugal - when a schedule gives a starting time for an event, add about 40 minutes to that and you could be lucky. The parade does not start at 10pm, and we have a 1 hour drive home along aforementioned windy roads in the dark, so we give up after about 40 minutes of waiting and drive home. The red lights on the hundreds of wind turbines across the hilltops create the impression of large packs of gargantuan wolves galloping across the land.

Other standout moments (short versions as I’ve just realised how long this post could be if I wax too lyrical!)…

We visited some local waterholes - one with a very picturesque swing…