7 October 2022 - Pinhao

Miles driven today = <0.1

Total Miles to date = 2,049

Last night we saw just how popular the aire here at Regua is with many more vans than the 30 officially allowed parked in every available space around the aire.  So as soon as a few started to move out this morning we shifted from our €3 a night spot to some prime freebie real estate.  Being a Friday it's even busier tonight and even the grass on the riverbank is rapidly filling with motorhomes so I'm glad we moved when we did.  Temperatures were forecast to hit 30+ degrees today so we made sure we parked with the fridge on the shaded side.

Once that was sorted we took ourselves off on a day trip, catching the train upstream to Pinhao

I'm so glad we chose to take the train rather than drive.  It gave us both the opportunity to truly appreciate the scenery of the Douro valley without having to concentrate on hairpin bends and oncoming traffic in the middle of the road.

The 25km journey takes about 40 minutes so we were never travelling particularly fast and there were plenty of opportunities to take pictures.  I wondered how many people drop their phones out of the window every year.  Thankfully neither of us did.

We pulled into Pinhao Station and had one of those comedy panic moments where neither of us could work out how to open the door.

We then had to wait for the train to depart before we could walk across the tracks to the main station building.

The station is decorated on all sides with a series of painted tiles which depict historical scenes from the Douro valley.

Pinhao is absolutely surrounded by vineyards.

Each of the estates, or Quinta, have a centre where you can sample their wares and hopefully become impressed/drunk enough to buy cases of the stuff as a result.  We were recommended Quinta do Bomfin who had a very plush headquarters.  We tried to get ourselves onto a tasting tour for the afternoon but they were booked solid with tour parties.  They could allow us a tasting session straight away but it was barely 11am and Lisa hadn't even had a proper breakfast so we decided it probably wouldn't be the most sensible offer to take up.

We headed for the riverbank and accidentally wandered into the grounds of a very high class looking hotel.  We took in the views before backtracking with our very best "of course we're supposed to be here" faces on.

When we finally did make it down to the riverbank we made our way to the piers where all the big river cruisers from Porto dock.  One was just leaving which meant the town was relatively quiet for us.

Pinhao sits on the confluence of the Douro and Pinhao rivers.  We walked a short distance up the latter.

The view upstream from the stone bridge  crossing the Pinhao river.

We had built up a hunger and so we ensconced ourselves on a terrace overlooking the river.  We both had cod stuffed with ham.  I think mine was looking at me funny!

Trains for the return leg only leave once every 2 hours so we made sure we got on the one which departed a little after 2pm and found ourselves back in Regua by 3.  We then did something which I never would have believed I would ever do again.  We got on one of those little tourist road trains.  Admittedly the promise of alcohol probably swung this decision.

I had no idea these things were capable of climbing mountains, especially with what was getting very close to a full compliment of passengers.  We made our way up hill for several miles until we were given the most spectacular views looking down over the Douro and Regua.

We were then taken to a rather down at heel looking Quinto.  While the Portuguese passengers watched a little video we had a nose around.  These crates were all dated 2007.  They were selling 40 year old stuff at €100 a bottle.

We were also presented with a very quaffable glass of white port.  Lisa was on the look out for some anyway so at €7.50 a bottle we were hooked.

This evening has been spent at the motorhome mega-city while we watched the herons fly home to roost and the bats come out to play.  We'll move on tomorrow and leave our space for others to fight over.

8 October 2022 - Lamego and driving the Duoro Valley part 1