|
But is it up the Doorow, the Dowroo or the Dwehroh?  Above: Last historic train of the evening to Porto goes by just often enough to provide entertainment and convenience without being a nuisance. This part of our month-long trip was the one we needed to pin down first in order to build our travel plan around it. Boy did we strike it lucky. There was the odd sweaty moment but the actualité was bliss on many fronts. Our friends Sián and Roger Starr re-ignited the Portuguese Bug after being enticed by the Douro Valley and raving to us about a hotel a little downstream. They enthused about it while we were touring together in South Africa early in 2024. We were captivated, only to have our hopes dashed by "their" perfect small hotel, which was (understandably) fully booked for our target dates. I say reignited because we'd been hankering after a coast to coast Iberian trek incorporating the Douro - Duero path for quite a few years. This had, so far, been thwarted by sundry health obstacles, including Covid, and, even now, had put paid to a full boat/walk/cycle/train Porto-Catalonia option. The Starrs' experiences had seemed to be just the ticket for part of our consolation prize.. And so I'd had to search again. Comfortable accommodation in an intimate establishment in an accessible rural setting were givens. A working winery would be a bonus. Perfection would be somewhere where we could just segue into Spain and carry on up the Duero. We just about made it. The only impediment was the reverse of our travails in entering Portugal from Spain. Earlier we'd failed to find a segue in and now we appeared to have no segue out. Actually, knowing what I know now, the transition from Portugal into Spain could probably be effected in a simpler, more interesting way. We'll just have to go back and to pray that our hosts, Isabel and Ricardo, are still managing the oasis in Ferradosa. Above [l-r, top-bottom]: Fledge talisman finally gets to go up the Dowroo[1]; First spotting from the train of a substantial Douro winery; Two lots of Nimbus, Shan's taking the prize; Couple more great shots from Shan, especially the iron bridge which switched the rail from the right to the left bank; Isabel loading the Fledge onto her boat so we could cross back across the river to the Ferradosa winery where we'd be staying; arrived at the farm and looking back across the river at a magnificent pile. Getting to Ferradosa (the winery) One doesn't quite just hop on a boat and head up the Douro. First the train takes you from Porto to Pala, which skips the lowest reaches of the river. At that point it is possible to hop on some sort of boat and do the rest. However, the Starrs advised us to stay on the train, which was 100% good advice, as the railway line sticks to the river from there on and provides the panoramic views you'd want. Anyone wishing to make this journey should set off from São Bento station in Porto[2]. It takes just under 3 hours and gets you the best choice of seats. Nab seats on the right hand side if you can. Shan and I caught a separate train from São Bento to Campanha where we had a tedious wait before resuming our journey. Worse than that, we had the worst kind of Brit tourists - a couple who'd nabbed 4 seats and got pretty snarky when we asked to use one of them because the train was full. Shan was on the other side of the aisle in a similar situation except that the two on her side were Portuguese and much more pleasant. My worst kind of Pom seat companion carried out a deliberate, over-loud monotonous monologue at his partner for the entire 140 minute journey from Campanha to Pinhão where he and most of the other passengers got off. Mercifully we then had plenty of peaceful space to enjoy what turned out to be the most spectacular part of our journey, anyway. "Mark," I heard someone call as we alighted from the train. It was the delightful Isabel who was to be our host for the weekend. She drove us a short distance in her car and then transferred our luggage and us to her boat and conveyed us across the Douro to our lodgings. Her husband Ricardo met us on the other side and made light work of transferring our suitcases to our room. Boy, were we glad to be rid of them for a few days. At this point it is worth relating a conversation that Shan had with the ticket office in Campanha station where, as conditions of our Interrail passes we were required to book slots for the remainder of the journey. We were used to this from earlier journeys. "How much will that be," Shan asked the friendly man in the ticket office. " €8," our friend replied. "Is that €8 each from here to Ferradosa?" Shan responded, calculating €8x2x2=€32 in her head and thinking it sounded reasonable for six hours of travelling[3].. "No, €8 for two return tickets for two passengers," our man smiled. The other attraction of the train up The Douro is that it is conducted on a proudly maintained historic train and railway line. Ricardo, having spared us lugging our luggage for the last few hundred metres and Isabel, having showed us our room and given us a quick tour of the area immediately surrounding our home for three nights (and two bottles of the estate's wine) then left us to our own devices. We settled into a couple of loungers beside the infinity pool to contemplate our navels and the busy day we'd just enjoyed. At the Quinta da Ferradosa  Above [l-r, top-bottom]: The panorama from one of the higher points of the Quinta's 350 Ha, accessed in Isabel's 4x4; (2) the gin palaces are not universally popular along the Douro, which of these two d'you think is the most vulgar?; they both make waves to spoil this reflection; the writer/artist renovator's dream, set on the hillside with a splendid view of the Douro; a couple of details we crawled over; exotic cat; destructive goat[4]; exotic turtle; bog-standard frog. At the vinícola guests can do pretty much what they like. Activities include:
Wine being made The current engine room for the wine was thrumming while we were there. As wineries go, it is quite small but all the more inviting as a result. The apparent heir apparent, Jao Calem, was in residence at the discrete main house and was performing his hands-on supervision of this year's batch. He made time for us during this busiest of periods with all hands on deck. An interesting snippet for me was that the Ferradosa brand seemed to be undergoing a metamorphosis like many of the other houses in the Iberian Peninsular where the emphasis seems to be turning towards fresher styles of wine and staying in step with the rest of the world by doing so. We tried some of the older style and some of the newer. For me they both had their place and I'd be sad to see the Douro lose too many of those deeper, more succulent wines with their attendant gravitas. I could spend all day on the wine-making process and its subtle differences from winery to winery and there are far superior people to me who have written veritable tomes on the subject. It was lovely for us to witness the barrel-filling process and hear the enthusiasm of the small band of people at full throttle. The owner of Quinta da Ferradosa, Joaquim Calem, takes great pride in preserving and repurposing the working building that he inherited, which is refreshing to note with all the ultra-modern facilities springing up in the Douro/Duero Valley. Above [l-r, top-bottom]: The Quinta with the main part of the current vinícola in the foreground and the older, derelict facilities in the distance; A couple of the Quinta's wines sitting cheekily on the spillway of the infinity pool - the "ferro" is a newer, lighter wine, the other is one of their traditional whites; (2) this year's wine process has just moved from the large tanks to the French Oak barrels; (2) Isabel was most informative, explaining the unique features of the vinícola; (2) some lovely old bits of wine making machinery still lurk in the derelict buildings higher uo on the Quinta.. All good things ... Our stay at Ferradosa was over far too soon and suddenly Isabel and Ricardo were helping us across the river to the train station. It was a fond but sad farewell as we clambered on to the train. The return journey gave us the choice of where we wanted to sit and we settled in for the 3-hour scenic journey, this time in the opposite direction. We were to have one connection in Porto where we would have 8 minutes to disembark and find the high-speed train to Coimbra. Our friend Fiona, a veteran rail traveller, had advised that if there was one thing we needed to do, that would be to have a pee on train #1 to avoid hopping from leg to leg on the intermediary platform. Excellent advice although we didn't need it in the event because our Coimbra-bound train was a little late leaving Porto Campanha. So we get off the train in Coimbra fairly near to the carefully chosen accommodation and wondering whether to get a cab until Google assured us it was a short gentle walk. So off we went dragging our wheelie bags and within minutes encountered the first flight of many, many stairs. The top of the hill in Coimbra that hosts the old university is sufficiently severe for the city fathers to provide a lift/funicular combo to get you to the top. So we'd dismissed the sensible taxi and combo options in favour of what ended up being a duel of rugby lock-forwards with our suitcases. We finally arrived at our accommodation to find that it was absolutely as quirky as it had claimed to be, only everything was about half the size that might have made it practical. They kind of made up for it with an upgrade to a "suite" and a splendidly abundant breakfast that neither of us could do justice to. I think a younger cohort was probably their target market. Freshers' week BUT ... they did steer us to Terraço do Alta, a most excellent restaurant a few steps away with splendid food and a panoramic view of the colourful houses tumbling down a hillside that Portugal is renowned for. We went back the next evening . And our first night had resounding musical entertainment from the university freshers' week in the valley below and then the joy of the freshers proceeding up the hill with a similar climb but, happily for them, no suitcases Above [l-r, top-bottom]: typical Portuguese hillside at sunset; after dark; (2) the black-coat seniors are ushering the civvy clothed freshers up the hill to much hilarity, especially when they spotted me taking pictures; our hotel was pretty bohemian with a very cramped loo behind the mirror and a TV watching gallery to the left of it that you'd have to be a contortionist to get into it; Bohemians and students catered for. I suppose we chose Coimbra for some fairly intangible reasons but, having now experienced the place, we'll certainly stick it on our list again. It has its own charm as Portugal's #3 city. We may have chosen to go there as a stepping stone to get from the Douro to the Duero because no-one in the Spanish or Portuguese transport hierarchy felt the inclination to make travel between their two countries easy. Now we departed having enjoyed ourselves and believing there was plenty to draw us back for a return visit. A cynic might observe that both countries, especially Spain, appear to have done pretty well out of the EU and/or Unesco in recent years so we hope intercity trains between places like Salamanca and Coimbra won't be ignored for much longer. Coimbra does have a proud history in its university going back to1290 and permanently 1537[6] and has been in its current location to some extent since. We stayed where we did to absorb some of this. It did turn out to be a bit of a curate's egg. They do like their graffiti and they are distributing the university gradually around the city. So when we asked why the Faculty of Medicine and, even more so, the Centre for Neuroscience and Cell Biology, were beginning to look decidedly tatty, we were told they were being moved to other parts of the city. On the other hand, the central icon of the university has just been renovated at vast expense just a praça away. Coimbra University has had a leg up from UNESCO and it would be a pity if that has begun to fizzle out? Above [l-r, top-bottom]: Graffiti was pretty endemic in Coimbra, a lot of it depressing; sometimes it wasn't, though, as in the café outside our hotel; the faculty of medicine in the main campus looking distinctly tired; the showcase university palace wasn't, though, currently having undergone extensive renovation for Shan to desport herself from the balcony; this campus cat had pride of place in its own weedy corner; sadly we couldn't enjoy the Fado as the performance was sold out. Above [l-r, top-bottom]: (2) the Sub-ripas House with handy plaque to tell one all about it; we had to have a Francesinha (Portuguese for little French woman, making the connection to a croque madame although the Coimbra version was a lot more elaborate; lively Old Town; gate to a posh gallery; organ pipes in the cathedral that looked as if the might double as a machine-gun emplacement. We didn't know if it was the time of year (beginning of October) but there seemed to be a disproportionate number of American tour parties thronging the old part of the city. However, in summary, and to reassure Shan, I DID enjoy Coimbra and would certainly go back, especially if I could insure that I got to listen some Fado. Coming Next
All trains to Spain are off, even those that were possible a decade ago, for who knows how long. Our guide books, necessarily a little behind the curve because they report what exists, show routes to die for, but now these have been withdrawn in the last few years. So we are returning to Spain but, once again, there's no train (although there is a bit of rain) ... I have to say, though, that the necessary, quite expensive car journey was pleasant indeed ... but that's for our next blog ... [Endnotes]:
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorMark Harrison - making travelling an adventure Archives
October 2024
Categories |
RSS Feed