Peso Da Regua- 13 October 2018
Drove for about 2 hours up and down the hills alongside the Douro river. Best drive of the trip. Parked up alongside the river and went for a ride. Kay’s nose sniffed out a vineyard and we’re booked on a tour for tomorrow. No tours today as a wedding was taking place while we were there.
13 October
Fair to say that the circus was loud - until about 11.30. Back to being too hot for me to sleep well. We go to the coast, and it’s chilly, inland a bit - and it’s too hot. Whilst writing this our gizmo says it’s 35° in Dave and 33° outside. Don’t feel that it’s necessarily totally accurate, but you get the gist!
Quite slow to get going again this morning, in fact the other three mohos left before us!
Tintin drove - has been the nicest drive to date! Over two hours actual driving, up hills (when does a hill become a mountain?), and down again, really windy - but roads generally ok surface wise, narrower as we got closer to our destination.
On route we saw a hydro electric dam, so stopped to have a look. Fortunately for us the Viking Torgil was just coming in. Tintin saw the passengers getting water dropped on going through the lock, and scattering out of the way (see dish of the day photo). Huge difference in water levels, and so narrow - longer boats wouldn’t fit in!
Arrived at:
Peso da Regua (1) - free - would be €3 if we needed services
Quick lunch, then bikes out. Rode on a cycle path in the direction we’d come in on. There are gypsies parked up fairly near, we saw them when the river boats moor up, trying to sell sun hats. Quick stop at tourist office, not that much of note, as we didn’t fancy going to the museum.
There are three bridges all close to each other, rode over the pedestrian one, and generally went for a mooch. Was following my nose, and arrived at Quinta da Pacheca. It does wine tasting, but not today as there was a wedding. As you can see from Tintin’s photo, the bridal party walked right past our bikes! Very informative lady in the shop asked what we’d like to drink - had some lovely ice cold white port (for free!) and booked a wine tasting tour for tomorrow morning.
There is a lovely pooch called Aqua, she looks very much like Stevie dog - and had a lovely gentle nature and wanted her tummy rubbed!
James, think maybe you could cope with the ‘glamping’ in the oak barrels, especially with all the wine on your doorstep!
Tintin is currently reading that tropical rain storm Leslie is due to hit Portugal soon, worse from Lisbon down towards the Algarve. Maybe we won’t be wine tasting tomorrow - now depends on how much rain there is, as we need to ride our bikes, rather than drive...
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