Saturday, May 19, 2012

Douro Valley and Porto

village of Lamego near the Douro River
there are 600 steps up to the Church of Remedies 
in the background - a main Portuguese pilgrimage site

 
at the top of the steps looking down

bridge and freeway over the Douro at Peso da Regua

Douro River and valley about100 km  E of Porto
view of bridge from our Porto apartment
designed by a student of Gustave Eiffel

dinner at a restaurant with live Fado
(Portugeuse blues)

one of the Fado singers

view of Porto from the Clerigos tower

ditto but looking towards the cathedral

After a slow drive along part of the windy (as in twisty) Douro River, we are now in Porto, a very pleasant city, and home to many port wine cellars.  It's also from where the "Port" part of the name Portugal derives.
Yesterday we walked the 6 km to the Atlantic Ocean and the upmarket Porto suburb of Foz, before checking out the main city centre later.  
Today Jonathan arrives (yippee!) in a few hours - we'ved saved the Ribeira area to look over with him.

Here are a couple of photos of cork trees that I forgot to post when were in the cork-growing Alentejo region:

the number "1" indicates that the cork was last harvested in 2011,
and will be ready for reharvesting 9 years later.

No comments:

Post a Comment