The Douro River - that's how it all started! We wanted to do a river cruise, decided on the Douro and then began planning. The options started to get complex certainly expensive and most importantly, definitely not good value for money. Add in the fact that the journey is only 209 km each way, yet the cruise companies manage to make it a 7 or 10 day journey, is a guaranteed wind-up for this correspondent, so we decided we would create our own driving holiday instead.
We set off from Salamanca, as usual aiming for lesser trodden roads, and enjoy our last drive in Spain. A viewpoint sign is too tempting as we drive three kilometres up a dirt track to get our first view of the Douro, good job we didn’t decide to walk. Before long we’re descending and on a bridge over a tributary we walk across the border between Spain and Portugal, whilst we explore the (cruise) port village of Cais de Barca d’Alva where we also explore the sadly abandoned railway complete with station, engine sheds and turntable. The villagers must have suffered when the railway ended, only to get a reprieve when the cruise industry came along.
We set off from Salamanca, as usual aiming for lesser trodden roads, and enjoy our last drive in Spain. A viewpoint sign is too tempting as we drive three kilometres up a dirt track to get our first view of the Douro, good job we didn’t decide to walk. Before long we’re descending and on a bridge over a tributary we walk across the border between Spain and Portugal, whilst we explore the (cruise) port village of Cais de Barca d’Alva where we also explore the sadly abandoned railway complete with station, engine sheds and turntable. The villagers must have suffered when the railway ended, only to get a reprieve when the cruise industry came along.
From here we continue to head West but the mountainous terrain ensures this is a dramatic and slow drive. The poor Bug’s little engine isn’t really suited to this but she’s trying very hard - I find keeping the shift in sports mode maintains revs above the turbocharger threshold so there’s no more turbo-lag, which is the biggest problem on very winding roads. At one stage our ambitious route takes a dramatic turn across vineyards and an unpaved section which is rather hair raising! Since leaving the river we’ve climbed over 600 meters, and descend most of this in the rough.
We call in on another village to lunch, wander, hit the church before our final riverside drive to our next hotel, Delfim Douro perched on the hills above the river.
There’s time for a swim and some work before be shower and dress for dinner. Tomorrow we visit an infamous seventies icon!
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