Reilly Portugal

  On our TV when entered our room in Lisbon. We woke up to enjoy a lavish breakfast bar/ buffet. Then we were on our last bus tour seeing some of Lisbon. Lisbon is the largest city in Portugal with about 3 million people in the area. Drove to the Belěm district. This area is in the southwest corner of Lisbon right on the Tagus river. Walked around some of the sights and enjoyed another taste of the pasteis de Belém. This batch was made by the original bakery. Above is the Torre de Belém, a 16th century fortification.  The 25 de April Bridge is alot like the Golden state bridge. Why the date? Prior to that date, it was the Salazar Bridge, named after the dictator who ruled Portugal until 1966. On April 25th 1966, he lost his reign, so they changed the name of the bridge. Kind of odd if you ask me. This HUGE monument is in honor of all the explorers from Potugal. The man in front is known as Henry the Navigator, who was the son of one of the kings. This is called the Monmument o...

 A day of bus travel, but we had some wonderful stops as we headed to Lisbon.  A stop at Nazaré, a sea coast town of about 10,000. Its fame is BIG surfing waves (around the other side of the rock cliff). It's a popular fishing port and holiday location. We saw where the local fisherman were drying the fish along the shore (and yes that's octopus in the foreground) We had a great fish luncheon provided for us. And we managed some nice weather in between showers.  Then on to Óbidos, a medieval city, now inhabited by about 3100 people. Originally a Roman city, it fell to the Moors in the 700s. Later the city was given to the Queen as a bridal gift from King Dinis. She and the queens that followed were in charge of the city. Most of the city was destroyed in the Lisbon earthquake of 1765, but was later rebuilt. At one point the local nuns starting making a sour cherry liqueur called ginja. The locals now serve it in little chocolate cups.  Oh so good.  

 This was our last day on our boat Douro Serenity.  Tomorrow we head out towards Lisbon. We started with a trip to Guimarães city, the so-called birthplace of Portugal. After a quick lunch on our boat, we set out to explore more of Porto on foot. Porto is quite hilly, like Seattle in places. We rode a gondola up to the pedestrian bridge to walk across from Gaia to Porto. A great view of the Douro river. Walked around a couple of the districts,  had a coffee and back to the boat. After our last dinnner here, it was time to pick up as we leave early tomorrow for Lisbon stopping at Nazaré and Obidos. This rabbit was done by a famous Portugal artist who makes sculptures of large animals out of "junk". Name: Bordalo II. There are sculptures located all over the world.

 This morning we were  back on the river as we head to Porto, our last river spot.  We cruised through our last lock before docking in the late morning. A short visit to Taylor's Port wine cellars and of course another tasting followed. (Hey we're on a wine tasting cruise!) The cellars were on a hill looking over the Duoro river and guarded by peacocks. We docked at Gaia across the river from Porto. After lunch we had a bus tour of Porto. We got off the bus and walked to the historic S. Bento railway station with all the blue tiles depicting the history of Portugal.  At the top of one of the many hills was the Se Cathedral with the bishops quarters next door. The clouds opened up for about 5 minutes and we all scrambled to put up our hoods and umbrellas. Then it cleared up. "That's Porto they say". Tomorrow afternoon we'll have more time to wander around. We did drive by the infamous bookstore, Livraria Liva, where perhaps some of J K Rowlings creativity start...

Quiet day. Cruised all morning, passing through our 4th lock. It is the deepest lock in Europe, with a drop of 115 feet. In the afternoon we landed at Entre-os-Rios. Once there we hopped on our bus to go to Quinta da Aveleda, a large vineyard and winery. We tasted Vinho Verde, a " green" wine. It wasn't really green, just very new. At the estate we walked through a beautiful English garden prior to our tasting. It was mostly a rainy day, but we managed to get in some deck time and our garden walk in between rain showers.