We started our day today with a 2 hour boat cruise up the Douro. Weather was again quite gloomy but the rain thankfully held off until we got back to dock. Hard to capture the beauty of the hillsides. All the hills are terraced with man made stone walls, with vines, olive trees and almond trees (most of them decades old) making for beautiful textures. Colours magically transformed when there was a snippet of Sun.

Because of the steep slopes tending the vines and picking is all done manually by the local communities. They carry the fruits out in baskets on their shoulders. Most winery buildings are also terraced, using gravity to move the grapes/wine through the process rather than requiring no pumps. The barrel rooms (I’m sure they have a technical name but I don’t know it ) are dug into the rock faces protecting the wine from the summer heat which gets to mid 40s here- although it was hard to imagine today when we were rugged up to the 9s.

The trip down the river was pretty smooth but the wind and the current has got up by the time we turned around which made for a rough (and slightly wet) trip back.

We had a late lunch at a local restaurant/wine bar. I ordered lamb cutlets, and for a mere 16 Euro received a plate of no less than 10 cutlets (plus salad and potatoes)- given we paid $6 a cutlet last time we bought them in Melb, I am going to be eating lamb at every opportunity here! As well as huge meals have fabulous flavours – we are fast realising it’s hard to get a bad meal , or wine, in Portugal.

By the time we dragged ourself away from our cosy lunch spot the rain had settled in for real, so we drove to Peso Da Regua (about 20K awayto visit the Douro Museum. The museum covered the complete history of the area from first establishment through to current day. Production – including some fabulous old film footage. Highly interactive with a fabulous audio tour including audio descriptions for all items – a great example of inclusion. And made it a dream for me.

It was a long drive back on the extremely narrow river hugging roads – with a few moments of breath holding as local drivers whizzed by in both directions! Hopefully it will be easier tomorrow when (if )the rain stops.