Iberian Peninsula day 14 - 20/07/19

I used to think that a county with a border on the North Sea produced the worst drivers in Europe. This last vacation has allowed me to conclude there’s another contender for this dubious title. At first, I thought our Bug, bearing the ‘E’ numberplate invoked the KILL! instinct but having seen other instances we’re not involved in has allowed me to rule this hypothesis out. Another week may be enough time to conclude my findings. 

I know I’ve gone on a bit about the Douro cruise situation but seriously, if one reads the itinerary for these cruises, the whole navigable bit is dealt with in just over a day each way. Compare that to the two whole weeks we spent sailing from Amsterdam to Budapest and well, there isn’t really a comparison. Further analysis shows the week’s cruise-vacation spends whole days doing similar things to what we’ve done too, just taking longer to do them, and it’s also there and back, all the cruises leave from Porto and end there too. So all in all, and despite being massive cruise addicts, we firmly believe for the Douro our modus operandi is the better, however we thought we’d still get the water-level perspective by doing a short hop before we leave this beautiful region. 

A lovely, lazy morning by the pool first, then we drive into Peso de Régua, our nearby town, to get petrol (15% more expensive here!) and try to find the theatre (we failed) before we join the local passenger ship Independence which is going to take us upriver to Pinhão just 29 km away. Billed as a dinner cruise, we’ve good reason to be sceptical having had numerous of these with very variable qualities, but there’s no alternative so we’ve pre-booked and cast our concerns aside. 

Approaching the pier we’re thinking OMG too many people, but then we board and actually it’s surprisingly OK as we’re taken to our table and given our first glass of white port. This sets the tone for the lunch and we’re very happy, except for the part of the starter that is pig’s ear, definitely not for our English palates. Otherwise it’s an excellent lunch until pudding where the “plastic” cheesecake isn’t our taste, but you know, mustn’t grumble! 

90% it’s been excellent including seemingly unlimited wine, so we are pretty happy when we disembark in Pinhão for a brief visit, checking out the beautiful tiled railway station, the town and it's bridges, before being back at the dock ready to head back to Régua. Our return journey is more “party” as we’re in the top deck with many others having a good time, which is quite nice for a couple of hours. We pass through one lock, dropping 27 metres on the return which is a great reminder of our other river cruise (on that occasion there were 156 to traverse.)

We’re back for a late pool-time and aperitif before a speedy change for our last dinner hanging off the hillside above the beautiful River Douro.