Going home

The last morning tour exceeded expectations. It went to the Mateus Rose house, as depicted on millions of bottles. Mateus Rose is now produced elsewhere but the house is impressive and the gardens attractive. Large butterflies everywhere.

TSH saw a preserved steam engine (not in steam) on display in Regua.

The flights back home are not appealing – Porto to Manchester via Frankfurt is just mad.

Cork oak

Lunch was taken at a winery, followed by a bakery and a visit to a museum. The bakery was an OCD’s nightmare. Tourists wandered around a grubby little shop, handling the bread, which was also appreciated by the flies. No samples crossed Diva’s lips. More interesting was the cooperative winery, where everything was stainless steel and shining clean. The guide, who was one of the plant managers, wore a t-shirt with a slogan on the back – “Follow me, I know where the wine is”. During these visits, many glasses of wine were tasted.

The roads in this area are steep, narrow, winding and with great drops to the side – sometimes without a wall, hedge or post between the road and the edge. The drivers really are very good and the vehicles are all brand new and owned by Viking.

By the side of the road were many cork oaks, some with red trunks, where the cork had been removed, and the guide explained that they were harvested every 8 or 9 years. Someone asked whether it killed the trees when the bark was removed!

The disembarkation briefing conveyed the usual information about coloured luggage tags, times of disembarkation and the dreaded gratuities (a crazy way of paying anybody for anything). One of the passengers, who had a flight booked from Lisbon, did not appear to appreciate that he was disembarking in Porto, did not have any arrangements to get to Lisbon and expected Viking to organise his transfer.

A confession

The only full day tour was to Salamanca in Spain, involving a steep climb out of the Douro valley and onto the central Spanish plateau. This was the day with the greatest potential to be extremely hot but fortunately the temperature never rose about 30 degrees, which was more than hot enough for Diva. The last time TSH and Diva experienced such a high temperature was above the Arctic Circle (see earlier entry here).  Salamanca is a beautiful old city with many of the buildings constructed from golden sandstone.

One of the 16^th century facades, with World Heritage accreditation, has been recently restored. The mason decided to get creative, so he added images such as himself eating an ice cream and an astronaut in a space suit. UNESCO are not happy but the mason said if they didn’t like it they could re-do it themselves. This is a new level of Diva-ish behaviour.

Lunch at a hotel included a flamenco performance which was so authentic that the singers led the Viking tour group (but not TSH and Diva, who would not admit to knowing the words) in a rousing chorus of ‘Viva Espana’, followed by ‘Volare’ (isn’t that Italian?).

Dinner was a barbecue on deck, involving flies on the food. Not as good as the served dinners.

Fauna spotted: Heron, black pigs, black bulls, black donkey, white cows, sheep, horses, storks nests (storks on vacation in Africa), many unidentified birds of prey.

Fauna not spotted: dragons, dinosaurs.

To tell the truth, they walked down the steps in Lamego, not up.

Old port

The morning sail produced the most dramatic views so far. Most of the landscape is rounded hills, with lines of olive trees, but this section has steep rocky cliffs. The afternoon tour was to Figueira de Castelo Rodrigo, an old hill town with steep streets. One of the features was the old Jewish quarter with some Moorish features, suggesting that Jews, Muslims and Christians lived together in harmony.

Before dinner was the ceremony of opening a bottle of vintage port, including heated tongs, cold water, broken glass and a decanter. Vintage port was served after dinner but it has a strange texture and a smoky taste. TSH and Diva prefer the cheap stuff.

We have light (but only when we want it)

At 8 am, the Torvil passed through a very deep lock with a 35m drop, followed by a number of low bridges. This meant that the radar was folded down, the side rails removed, the bridge compartment compressed and the sun-deck cover lowered almost to the level of the deck. Passengers were allowed to remain on the top deck as the low bridge passed close to their heads, although claustrophobe Diva retired below for a few minutes.

During the morning on board, Diva went to Reception to ask for written instructions for the lights. ‘It is not the Viking style’ – they prefer to explain things at check-in. Which they did not do. So the young receptionist accompanied Diva to the cabin and proceeded to press switches. But when Diva tried to repeat what he did, it did not always have the same effect. He assured her that no-one else on board had any problems. 30+ years in IT and Diva has lost her abilities. Or never had them in the first place. The young man provided enough clues that Diva was able to work out a few important principles. One, that operating the rocker switch in itself achieves nothing – your finger has to touch the small detector on the switch. Two, the dimmer only works as you switch on – you keep your finger on until you get the required level of dim. Trying to press it for this purpose later does not work. Three, switching off is not instantaneous. Patience (and Diva and TSH are not strong on this and when nothing immediately happened, were pressing other switches) is required and the lights go out after a few seconds. Simple.

Later, round the water cooler (well, the tea and coffee station), Diva discovered that most people either sleep with the lights on or remove the master card by the door which puts all the lights out. So its not just TSH and Diva, its almost everybody!! As usual, its only Diva who is prepared to ask questions.

TSH got a photo of a train (unfortunately not steam) travelling along the river bank.

There are swifts around and there were gulls in Porto but still no dragons, even little ones. TSH thinks he saw an eagle but a photograph will be submitted for expert confirmation.

The afternoon tour was to the interesting town of Lamego, where the main attraction was the shrine Nossa Senhora dos Remedios, situated at the top of an elaborate flight of over 600 steps. TSH and Diva walked all of them. Later there was a port tasting visit to the Sandeman’s cellar. Getting there involved a narrow steep road with many hair-pin bends and the bus over-hanging sheer drops. Not for the faint-hearted, and Diva mostly did not look. Another person on the wrong bus.

After dinner, excellent local folk singers performed. Their music was very similar to Scottish or Irish folk – the Celtic influence.

JK Rowling is just like Robin Hood

The local guide informed the group early in the tour of Porto that ‘The river is narrow here so you can cross on foot’!! The tour confirmed TSH and Diva’s impressions from an earlier visit that the city, which has some beautiful old buildings, needs a serious clean-up and restoration.

One of the sights pointed out was a bookshop where JKR completed ‘Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone’, and whose curving staircase inspired some of the descriptions of Hogwarts. She seems to be like Robin Hood and Bonnie Prince Charlie in that everywhere wants to claim a connection.

The tour finished with a visit to the Calem port house, and compulsory consumption of two glasses of port before returning to the Torvil for lunch.

The afternoon was spent on board, sailing to Bitetos. Dinner was taken at the Alpendurada     monastery, which has been converted to a hotel. A bit like a poussada, but a lot more investment needed to bring it properly up to standard. Because he knew the venue and views would be spectacular, TSH took his camera but unfortunately forgot to take an SD card, so no photographic record exists. Another good dinner, followed by Lisbon-style Fado, which is more dramatic.

Bats and termites

On the bus transfer to Porto, the lunch stop included a tour of Coimbra, Portugal’s oldest University town. The library (a beautiful old one and not the one students use today) is cleaned in a novel manner. All the wood carving is covered with plastic sheeting, a whistle is blown and then bats go about their work of eating the termites which are trying to eat the paper of the precious books. The guide claimed that this happens every morning, raising several questions. Where are the bats during the day? How do they find the time for all the covering and cleaning up? What is the whistle for?

The students in Coimbra appear to wear gowns more often than most students, but there is a suspicion that this is just for the tourists. Lunch included a Coimbra-style Fado performance.

On arrival at the boat, the Viking Torvil, there was very little time for unpacking and changing before the safety drill (very short), the daily briefing, the drinks reception and then dinner. Wine with meals is included in the package and the service is very generous, including a glass of port at the end of every dinner. Dinner was excellent.

After the meal, the captain took the boat for a short tour through Porto, to the Atlantic Ocean and back to the mooring space, giving everyone an opportunity to see the illuminated city and its many bridges of various vintages.

The boat is the newest in the fleet and everything is well designed and probably the result of much market research. Plenty of storage in the cabin, including a large wardrobe space. But the shower room is tiny and Diva (who really wants a bath) is struggling. The other issue is the complex light system. No light has a simple on/off switch and dimming processes are involved. The same sequence of switches does not appear always to give the same result. The lights were on all night because neither could work out how to switch them off. Over-engineered.

Tour of Lisbon

TSH and Diva were given orange tags to indicate which bus they were to travel on. They assumed that the bus would be marked as ‘orange’. But no. Miguel announced that orange tags meant bus C, giving the guests something else to remember and causing one woman to board the wrong bus after a stop and spend several minutes searching for the hat she had left on her seat. Not sure whether the people who open carried the colour tags at all times managed to make the translation to the alphabet. And then there was the guest who complained to the guide that her audio system was not working – easily rectified by plugging the earpiece into the receiver.The tour took in the monastery, Belem tower and the monument to the explorers, all of which were blogged here last year. Lunch was taken in the peace and quiet of the hotel bar, before a walk into the city in the (relative) cool of the late afternoon.

Three lots of luck at Manchester Airport

1.      1. Sausage butties for breakfast.

2. 2.      When Diva knocked the milk (which neither wanted) across the table and nearby floor, it missed both clothes and shoes.

3.      3. The flight left before two RAF jets escorted a passenger jet into the airport (bomb hoax), causing delayed and diverted flights for some time.

The Viking transfer to the Lisbon Tivoli went smoothly and the hotel room is smart and comfortable. Diva was not impressed at the ‘briefing’ when Miguel announced that the trip to the tile museum was cancelled because of too few bookings. TSH and Diva had agreed to book this but had not been given any opportunity to organise it. However, the following day, one guest was heard to announce that ‘it was the best briefing he had attended for some time’. Surely ironic. But everybody got a glass of sherry. Lots of nice friendly fellow travellers, including two from Cuddington met on the plane.

The shared pizza was so large that Diva just ate the topping from part of it and TSH left a slice of his share. Surely a first!!

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