A Day in Porto

The current shipping port for the city of Porto, or Oporto as it was translated into English, is Leixoes, and looks much like any other. But the city itself and its across-the-river sister of Vila Nova de Gaia, could not be more different from that area, although they are only about 15 minutes apart. The towns are built into the hills along the Douro River, and look a lot like the towns of Cinque Terre, but on a much larger scale.

This morning's tour included a short cruise on the Douro River as well as a visit to a port distillery. During our short city tour our guide almost, but not quite, jokingly explained that residents of Porto don't need to go to the gym, walking around is exercise enough. And she wasn't kidding! Just about everything is built on a slope - where have we seen that before? - all the way down to the river.

  

This is a well-known bookstore in Porto. Part of its
fame comes from the fact that J.K. Rowling got
some of her Harry Potter inspirations when she
was a regular customer here

The statue of Henry the Navigator, pointing out
to sea and toward the south

Just walking from the square with the statue of Henry the Navigator to the river was a challenge for some of the older people on the tour, since the tiny side street ran down to the river at about a 30° angle. But once we got to the boat the view was lovely.

The beautiful colours of the tilework are
just as nice as painted walls

Our cruise was about an hour long, and took us under the 6 bridges of Porto to the first big bend in the river and then all the way back to the coast before docking again in the centre of town. A number of the river cruise companies are doing Douro River cruises and we were wondering how interesting they would be. Given what we have seen of Porto and learned of the Douro Valley, a cruise would be quite scenic, taking passengers through the only true port-producing region in the world.

We walked up a different street when we left the boat, and came upon a small restaurant, just starting to cook the evening's offering. It was already starting to smell mouth-watering. Too bad we couldn't stay.

It looks like they're barbecuing a whole pig

Our last stop on the tour was the Ferreira port distillery. Here we got a tour and explanation of how port is made. The grapes are grown and the wine's initial stages are completed in the valley. Historically, the wine barrels were brought into Porto by boat and into the distillery where the fortification process was done. Now the grapes and/or juice is brought in on trucks and the whole process is done in the distillery. The size of the aging barrels depends on the type of port being made, whether tawny or ruby. Tawny port is aged in smaller barrels for differing lengths of time; ruby port is aged in huge barrels to limit the exposure of the wine to the wood and oxygen, and maintain a consistent taste and quality. Every few years there is the possibility of a vintage port, made from a single plot harvest, not blended. These only happen about 3 years in 10 on average and produce a very special port.

Port barrels in the aging process

The Portuguese people will often buy a bottle of the latest Vintage for an important event, like a birth or a marriage, and cellar it until the next important event, like an 18th birthday or 25th anniversary, when they will finally crack the bottle and drink it with friends and family. Vintage ports can be cellared for quite a long time, but need to be drunk within 48 hours of being opened because of the effect the open air has on the wine. The tawny and ruby ports can be drunk over a few weeks and not be adversely affected.

One of the varieties of port is a white port, which is the product of making the wine in the white wine style, taking the skins away immediately after crushing, instead of the red wine style where the skins are left in the tanks to impart their colour. The Portuguese will mix this with tonic water as a refreshing afternoon drink. Monica has never been a huge fan of port, it is rather strong and sweet, but it is nice to know about the history and the process for making it nonetheless.

The weirdest thing we saw all day happened while we were on the drive back to the ship after our port tasting. We crossed back over from Gaia and as the bus was rounding a bend, Larry looked out the window and couldn't figure out what he was seeing. What it turned out to be was a fog bank rolling in from the sea.

Apparently, this happens a lot, and has deterred many of the crew members from leaving the ship to explore Porto, because all they could see was the fogged-in harbour, even though the town was under a clear blue sky.  It was the only time we've heard the ship's foghorn blowing at the same time as 'Wonderful World' was playing at sailaway.