Douro Valley: Porto 6N/5D [Day 2]

May 2019 itinerary link continue from Day 1

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We started our second full day in Porto at the temporary Bolhao Market and got out breakfast of strong coffee, fresh juice, and some breakfast pastries. Then we walked to our favorite train station, Sao Bento, purchased 23 euro round trip tickets to Pinhao, and took in the tile works around the station.

People hear about port wine, but most don’t know where the name came from. What exactly is port wine? According to Wikipedia: Port wine is a Portuguese fortified wine produced with distilled grape spirits exclusively in the Douro Valley in northern Portugal. It is typically a sweet, red wine, often served as a dessert wine, though it also comes in dry, semi-dry, and white varieties. The wine received its name, “port”, in the later half of the 17th century from the seaport city of Porto at the mouth of the Douro River, where much of the product was brought to market or for export to other countries in Europe.

So we decided to take the train along Douro River to the Douro Valley wine region. Pinhao is one of the centers of Port wine production, and we chose Quinta da Roeda vineyard in Pinhao for our picnic lunch/winery tour. I was there a year ago & was impressed enough to return with more friends.

We noticed people running to the front of the train as we got on the train at Sao Bento. We were just busy finding 8 seats together for our group. The 2.5 hour journey began by going through the urban area which spread out more than we imagined. Almost an hour later, we started seeing the river on our right hand side. It would be wise to take seats on this side for the better view.

Once we got out of the greater Porto region, we did not see many populated areas. The train passed by an empty little station after another. Douro was a wide river surrounded by fertile green hills, and most of us never got tired of looking at the view. Finally a sizable town appeared, and it was Regua where the train stopped for 5-10 minutes. The conductor appeared and told us to get off the train. Puzzled, we stepped off the train and were led to the cars in front half of the train. They were consolidating the passengers and reduced the number of cars. Aha! This was why people were running to the front at Sao Bento.

Almost a half an hour later, we arrived at Pinhao Station. We checked the time table for the return trip, then found a van taxi that was willing to take us to our winery for 7 euros. We thought we misheard. Is it per person? NO, the whole gang of 8 in one car. It was about a 10 minute trip.

Quinta da Roeda is the vineyard owned by Croft Winery, one of the major port wine producers in the world. We felt so welcomed there, and the 30 euro picnic was quite a spread. So much so that we did not care whether we got the winery tour or not. (We did, and their presentation was interesting enough.) It was very relaxing just sitting around the picnic table gazing at the green scenery all around. I can do this again, I thought.

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The trains ran about an hour apart during the day, and it was not difficult to find a seat even though seats were not assigned. There were quite a few people waiting for the return train at Pinhao Station by mid-afternoon, but everyone got a seat.

Dinner was at Cafe Guarany where free Fado performance was happening 2-3 nights per week. It was a nice cafe with artsy decorations and relatively reasonably priced food that was quite good. It’s been part of the Porto arts scene since 1933.