Douro Valley, Northern Portugal

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* Exploring the Douro Valley – ways and means *

My wife and I had toyed with the idea of taking the train for the whole of our tour of the Douro Valley in northern Portugal. We are rather railway devotees, and the journey is perfectly practicable by rail, supplemented with judicious use of buses for side-trips to sites of interest off the track. We also toyed with the idea of a river cruise, of which a number are available, ...
...worth seeing in the upper Douro valley.


* The Douro *

The River Douro rises in the Spanish foothills of the Pyrenees, and flows west for nearly 900 kilometres before reaching the sea at Porto. For over a hundred of these kilometres it forms the border between Spain and Portugal, running mainly through a canyon; this stretch has now been designated as the International Douro Natural Park, administered jointly ... more

If there’s a better place in Europe to wait for a train than Pinhao, I’m yet to discover it. This is not a comment on the town, which is a bit on the scruffy side, but you don’t much notice the town from the railway station. Your eyes are drawn to the neatly-kept flowerbeds set into the platform and the murals formed of blue-and-white azulejo tiles that decorate the ticket office, depicting every stage in the growing and transporting of grapes for port wine. Looking around, you see some of the scenes replicated in reality, with vineyards climbing the slopes on either bank of the Douro, while the river winds away among them on its journey to the sea, a journey taken in the past by fleets of rabelos, the flat-bottomed barges designed to navigate the rapids with their barrels of wine.

Eventually, a hoot sounds in the distance and the train appears around the curve of the northern bank, right on time. From here it is just an hour’s ride up to the railhead at the even scruffier town of Pocinho, but the point of the journey is the travelling and the river views along the way, not the arrival. The river views have much to recommend them – the water sometimes turbulent, sometimes mirror-still; the banks sometimes steep and rocky, sometimes wooded, sometimes orderly with vines. The human settlements are sparse – tiny towns and villages, isolated homesteads in between. And at 2.90€ (£2.60) return fare for each of us (a concessionary senior rate, admittedly), it was hardly an expensive outing.

* Exploring the Douro Valley – ways and means *

My wife and I had toyed with the idea of taking the train for the whole of our tour of the Douro Valley in northern Portugal. We are rather railway devotees, and the journey is perfectly practicable by rail, supplemented with judicious use of buses for side-trips to sites of interest off the track. We also toyed with the idea of a river cruise, of which a number are available, of various durations and degrees of luxury. Ultimately, though, we settled for hiring a car, for the sheer flexibility it allowed for varying our route at a whim and scheduling our stops to suit ourselves, not someone else’s timetable.

Meanwhile, we told ourselves, we could always take a couple of trips by train and boat during the course of our journey. In the event, neither of these supplementary options quite worked out as intended. The best railway ride looked on paper to be that along the narrow-gauge track up the side-valley of the River Tua to Mirandela. However, paper is now the only terrain on which it runs. The line is closed following a series of accidents, “temporarily”, but no date has been set for its re-opening. Dark rumours ascribe the accidents to sabotage, allegedly perpetrated by those who wish to dam the Tua for hydro-electricity, the prospective flooding of the track having been one of the objections to such schemes.

As for the boat-trip, we had been advised that a daily cruiser ran from Pinhao to Peso da Régua at 11.00 a.m., but there was no onshore booking office at Pinhao to confirm this, and we turned up at the stated time to no avail. Later, we returned to the wharf to find a cruiser moored there and were told that it sailed at 4.00 in the afternoon, too late for us to be able to return to our hotel in time for the dinner we had booked, even by train. Available for private hire were a few boats of the traditional rabelo design, but they generally work on the basis of waiting for a minimum number of passengers to appear before setting sail. Being very early in the season, we couldn’t find enough fellow-tourists around to press-gang into a quorum.

So we missed the boat trip, which would have been a welcome extra, and by train we only had the one jaunt up to Pocinho. But essentially our experience convinced us that the decision to tour around by car was the right one. Without it, we wouldn’t, in the time available, have seen half of what we saw, and there is plenty worth seeing in the upper Douro valley.

* The Douro *

The River Douro rises in the Spanish foothills of the Pyrenees, and flows west for nearly 900 kilometres before reaching the sea at Porto. For over a hundred of these kilometres it forms the border between Spain and Portugal, running mainly through a canyon; this stretch has now been designated as the International Douro Natural Park, administered jointly by both nations. Towards its southern end, the canyon is crossed by a disused railway bridge, which can be attempted on foot by those of sufficient daring (the Rough Guide warns: “beware of rotten sleepers and snakes!”). I regret – well, sort of regret – that we didn’t go far enough upstream to put this to the test. Now that trains no longer run beyond Pocinho, the canyon is fairly inaccessible in any case, since the road reaches it only at infrequent intervals.

The main stretch of interest to the visitor is that within thirty kilometres or so to either side of Pinhao. This area is relatively accessible, picturesque and the centre for the production of port wine. Below it, the river runs on scenically enough towards Porto – and if you are driving it is worth hugging the banks insofar as you can rather than taking the motorway that runs parallel to the north – but, attractive though it is, there is little to entice you to linger much on your way. It is the middle stretch, therefore, the port-growing area, that is the focus of this review.

* Wine *

The official centre, and main museum, for the port wine industry is the Casa do Douro at Peso da Régua (known locally simply as Régua). Among the exhibits here you can see some fine stained glass windows illustrating the various stages of production, and the impressive map engraved by Joseph John Forrester in the early 19th century that delineated the wine-growing estates along the Douro. Forrester was an interesting character; a British-born nephew of the Offley port-shipping family, he went to work as a lad in the family firm and ended up being made a Baron in the Portuguese nobility for his role in reforming and regulating the entire industry.

A glance at the map will tell you what the landscape will confirm – that port is the lifeblood of the region. Every hillside is terraced with lines of vines, ranked like lateral corrugations around the contours; every other cluster of buildings seems to be a Quinta, the name given to the vineyard headquarters where the crop is harvested, pressed and stored.

Many of the quintas are open to public, and my wife and I visited two contrasting examples during our short stay in the area. The first, the Quinta do Panascal, is one of the main estates owned by the Fonseca company, a big port producer. Attractively located on a hillside above the valley of the Távora River, a tributary of the Douro, it is extremely professionally run. You tour the estate self-guided with the aid of an audio-phone commentary in your own language before being offered a tasting in the well-appointed reception room. The tour is free, and no great sales pressure is put on the visitor, the absence of which helped persuade us to buy a couple of bottles as gifts for friends.

The second was the small, privately-owned Quinta de la Rosa. Here a notice on the door said that it was open for visits at 11.00 daily. When we turned up at the appointed time the place seemed deserted, but eventually a very pretty young senhorina appeared and conducted us briefly round in a charming albeit desultory manner. It was rather early in the day for an extended tasting, but I did try their white port, which was really rather good; however, I failed to buy any because, apart from the tasting bottle, they had none in stock. Not the best-organised visit, but likeable enough, and also free.

As with the wine lodges of Porto, one could happily spend a day (or several) visiting the quintas of the upper Douro and find memorable things to enjoy in all of them, though whether one would actually remember them is another question.

* Towns in the area *

It’s hard to wax lyrical about the towns of the Douro valley, though they are not without character. Régua, the traditional capital of the port industry, has a rather run-down air and not much to detain the visitor other than the museum and the rabelos moored along the riverfront.

Pinhao, the other main port-producing town, I have already described as scruffy, which it is, though its setting (and railway station!) are superb, and the quayside quite pleasant for a stroll, or to sit and sip a glass of the local speciality. As an experience, I must also mention the butcher’s shop/smokery on the high street, into which we went to buy ingredients for a picnic. We found three or four local customers already in there, and seemingly set for a long session, as they sampled an enormous spread of sausages and smoked meats laid out on the counter, washed down with wine poured into tin cups from an unlabelled bottle. As they did so, they seemed to be placing large orders, albeit in a leisurely way. Just as we were resigning ourselves to a long wait to be served, we found ourselves also handed tin cups of the wine and offered samples of the foodstuffs. By the time we’d finished we’d eaten far more than the 200 grams or so of ham we’d come to buy and barely needed the picnic, though we didn’t quite have the chutzpah to withdraw the order. A photo of the shop-front is shown below, unprepossessing though it is, for ease of recognition if you’re ever in Pinhao and feeling peckish.

The pick of local towns for sight-seeing we found to be Lamego, which lies south of the Douro and strictly speaking in the next province, but well worth the detour. This has an attractive renaissance cathedral with cloisters, an ancient citadel on a hill crowned by a little castelo, and a well-stocked museum. The outstanding feature, however, is the many-tiered ornamental stairway that leads up from the town’s main avenue to the shrine of Nossa Senhora dos Rémedios, a sort of local Lourdes to which devout pilgrims flock in the hope of cure for their ills, the most masochistic of them mounting the 700 steps on their knees. Much as one may dismiss this stuff as so much mumbo-jumbo, one can’t deny that it inspires some magnificent architecture.

Less impressive, but good for a brief look round are Cinfães (charming church, lovely little park/playground with fountains squirting up from the pavement), Tabuaço (attractive plaza and side-streets, plus a hilltop park with fine views) and Sabrosa (no outstanding features, just a pleasant town). Sao João de Pesqueira is also said to be worth a visit, but alas we never reached it.

As for stately homes, these barely exist in the area, although some of the bigger quintas are of noble manor-house proportions. The nearest really fine example is the Casa de Mateus, not far off route to the north but technically outside the Douro Valley, as can be readily inferred from the fact that it produces rosé rather than port wine.

* Leisure activities *

The Douro Valley is not, I’m glad to say, highly-developed and those looking for theme parks or aquatic sports centres should look elsewhere. In fact, for a major river, it seems remarkably short of water sports facilities of any kind. We were, of course, there in April, early in the season and perhaps they simply hadn’t opened yet, but I didn’t see any places along the banks for hiring canoes or rowing-boats, and few if any pleasure craft were out on the water. This may be because the river is dammed in several places, but there are locks through which the cruise-boats pass and one would have thought the ribbon-lakes formed by the dams might be ideal for sailing, motor boats or water-skiing.

Horses and cycles can certainly be hired for riding in the hills, which look like good terrain for either, with plenty of panoramic views. Personally, I’m more of a walker, and my wife and I enjoyed a couple of good walks of a few kilometres from our hotel. I wouldn’t want to undertake a long trek, though, especially not in the heat of summer, since so much of the countryside is given over to vineyards, with scant shade. The predominance of highly-cultivated vines also means that the hill-side landscapes can look a bit bare and brown, though they are in places interspersed with the greenery of olive, almond and citrus groves, or little clumps of woodland. We were told that, as spring progressed into summer, the vines would grow more leafy tendrils, thereby rendering the vineyards greener. Perhaps. In the meantime, we had to console ourselves with wild flowers, of which my wife was able to point out an abundance – fragrant lavender, honeysuckle, cystus, borage – with the invigorating country air and the unfolding undulations of the hills.

* Where to stay *

It may seem over-confident of me to make recommendations on where to stay on the basis of just four nights’ sojourn, all in the same place, but I do so unhesitatingly and unreservedly. If you’re ever in this region try to make a point of staying at the Casa do Visconde, at Chanceleiros, near Pinhao. It’s one of the best hotels I’ve ever stayed in, and will form the subject of a separate, forthcoming review.

Failing that, we looked at two other options nearby. The Vintage House Hotel in Pinhao itself is well-appointed and well-situated beside the river, but gave the overwhelming impression of being too pleased with itself and stiff with formality. We had a snack lunch on the terrace, and didn’t feel we really needed the separate attentions of head waiter, under-waiter and wine waiter – all in dinner jackets – for a couple of salads, a glass of beer and a bottle of mineral water.

The Quinta de la Rosa – see above – also lets out rooms, and during our visit we bumped into an English couple who were staying there, who spoke well of it. At 85€ per night for a standard double room with breakfast, it was less expensive than either of the other two and if I found the Casa do Visconde full any time, I wouldn’t hesitate to give it a try instead.

I’ve no doubt you could find cheaper places, hostels or rooms to let in private houses, around the area.

* When to go *

Winter in these hills can be pretty chilly, and summer scorching hot. Best to go in Spring or Autumn. May might have been better than April with the benefit of hindsight; the earlier you go the more likely you are to encounter showers, which we did (the rain in Spain falls mainly in Portugal, perhaps, or words to that effect). In Autumn, you’d miss the Spring flowers, but you’d have the advantage of seeing the grapes being harvested. We’d aim at late September/early October if we went another time.

* How to get there *

As suggested in my recent review of Porto, it probably makes most sense to go by air. The Douro Valley is a natural extension to a Porto city break, or part of a wider tour of the region. You can fly direct to Porto’s smart new airport by TAP Portuguese Airways from Gatwick or Heathrow, or by Ryanair from Stansted, Birmingham, Bristol or Liverpool. We went Ryanair from Stansted – £76 each return, including all the taxes and extras they insist on adding to the basic fare. From Porto, hire a car, hop on a train or book a cruise, as discussed above.

* Recommendation *

The Douro Valley wouldn’t suit everyone. It wouldn’t much suit families with young children, since there is little for them to do. It wouldn’t much suit those who like to fill their days with man-made entertainment. It wouldn’t even suit those who seek magnificent man-made monuments – castles, cathedrals and stately homes – since these are few and far between.

For a short exploration of somewhere a little out of the ordinary, though, it suited us very well. It probably helped that we found an excellent place to stay, but even without that I think we would have enjoyed discovering the local ambiance in the towns and villages, taking the train up-valley and seeing the river views, tasting the wine and walking in the hills. On this basis, I’d recommend it, especially if combined with a visit to Porto and other parts of northern Portugal.

© torr 2009

For a review of the city of Porto, see:
http://travel.ciao.co.uk/Porto_Portugal__Review_5838160

For a review of our preferred hotel near Pinhao, see:
http://travel.ciao.co.uk/Casa_do_Visconde_de_Chanceleiros_Pinhao__Review_5840865
 

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