Portugal - Porto and the Duoro Valley

We decided again last minute to change our car rental booking because we once again found a slightly cheaper price through Europcar and they indicated they had mobile pick up. When we arrived in Lisbon, we didn’t have to clear immigration because we had already landed in the EU when we initially arrived in Tenerife so off to baggage pickup which wasn’t too bad and all the while Z was trying to initiate our mobile car rental check in which didn’t work. Needless to say, we walked over to Europcar only to find a massive queue and that their advertised mobile check in doesn’t work. Frustrating, because we ended up waiting over an hour before seeing an agent and even then the whole pick up process with the agent was slower than slow. We finally got out of the airport much later than we wanted and still had a just over 3 hour drive up to Porto ahead of us. 

Getting out of the city of Lisbon was a bit hectic with lots of traffic, but thankfully we didn’t take any wrong turns and got on the highway which aside from the numerous tolls on different stretches was smooth sailing. The thing I like about European highways are they are typically in good condition, there are plenty of service/rest stations along the side of the highways, the speed limit is appropriate for the roads, and most people tend to know how to properly drive… stay in the right lane unless passing and trucks stay in the right lane. It’s a novel concept that I wish would happen back home. The drive up to Porto was pleasant with the countryside more green and forested than we saw in Tenerife. We saw a lot of wind mills scattered around the country and the occasional solar panel farm as well; nice to see renewable energy sources being so vastly used. Z and I shared driving responsibility this time around and by the time we got to Porto, I was still driving and well I made a few wrong turns trying to get to our hotel. It was a bit frustrating for me because the city was unfamiliar and I didn’t want to hold up traffic or get into an accident trying to make a turn onto the route I was supposed to at the last second. After that experience, I stuck to the highway driving and Z did all the city driving with me helping in the navigation and it worked well. 

We arrived at the Renaissance hotel in Porto later than we would have liked, but we got there in one piece, checked in and immediately left for our dinner reservation at a fabulous restaurant called Alto Porto, about a 10 minute walk from the hotel. I had originally made a reservation for 8:30pm but had to change it twice because of the fiasco at the car rental and as such our reservation ended up being for 9:15pm. But hey, most Europeans eat supper late anyway, so when in Europe… We had a fabulous meal and our first real introduction to Portuguese wines; something we both discovered we really enjoyed and really took a liking too. 

The Renaissance hotel is a fairly new hotel, just over a year old and already they are expanding the hotel with a second building. The common areas and rooms are modern and nicely decorated. With most city based European hotels, the rooms aren’t that large, but ours was spacious enough with a king sized bed, a couch, and desk area. The bathroom even had two sinks which was a bonus! Our time in Porto was very limited, so in the morning we had booked a private three hour walking tour to get to see as much of the city as possible. In the morning as we arrived for breakfast, the restaurant was filled with seniors that were just finishing up before they hopped on their tour bus. It went from overly busy to very quiet, very quickly. 

Our tour guide Viola, originally from Italy, gave us a great introduction to Porto, providing information on the history and pivotal times of Portugal, and took us around the main sights and miradours (viewpoints) in the old part of town. It was a great way to see as much of the city as we could for the time we had. We learned that Portugal is the oldest nation-state in Europe established in 1139 AD, Portuguese is the official language in more countries that I thought and besides Brasil, includes Angola and Mozambique, and the traditional Portuguese ceramic tiles known as azulejo are used to decorate buildings, churches, and even train stations throughout the country. Each tile is painted with a part of the end design and then they are assembled to create a beautiful picture or mosaic design. The famous Portuguese pastry, Pastel de Nata, created by Catholic monks in the 18th century is found everywhere but Viola's tip was only buy from a store where you see a long line up and where you can see them being made fresh! 

That afternoon we were off to our next destination, the Douro Valley…one of the popular wine regions in Portugal. The drive to Douro Valley was a couple of hours and we had booked our stay at Quinta Do Valdalagea, a quaint family-run quinta (winery B&B) located atop a hillside with incredible views of the valley below and accessible via a winding road

that turned gravel road and was only one-car wide towards the top. Our host was very welcoming and our room was situated in an old farmhouse-like building with only 5 rooms. It was very cozy and nicely decorated. Each morning we were provided with an impressive breakfast spread with more food than we could eat. Everything was freshly prepared and the hospitality was amazing. As we explored the extremely scenic Douro Valley, we quickly discovered our new found love for Portuguese wine. I always associated Portugal with port wine and the Douro Valley is the only area in the world that is allowed to produce port. Little did I know about the rest of Portugal's wine production. Little interesting fact, Portugal is the world's largest cork producer, supplying over half of the world's cork supply, and this goes hand in hand with being one of the world's top producers of quality wines!! Throughout the Douro Valley there are some 25,000 wine producers... way too many to all taste!! We did try several different wineries during our time there and did not find a single one that we didn't like. In fact, we had a wonderful wine tasting experience coupled with tapas style dinner at Aneto Wines and Table in the little town of Peso da Régua. We enjoyed their wine so much that we bought a couple bottles to bring back home. Another winery worth mentioning that we toured was Quinta Do Vallado, a 300 year old winery that still carries port from 1888 honouring the founder of the winery. We learned on our tour that even with modern day technology, some of the best wines they produce are from grapes they still crush the "old-school" way - stomping with their feet. Yum! 

The Duoro Valley is also home to many olive groves and one of our stops was a combined olive oil and wine tasting tour at D'Origem, which also had picturesque views of the valley below it. Driving around the Duoro Valley was a lot of fun with the windy roads taking you up and through the hillsides with small towns scattered all around. The views and landscape are breathtaking and for as far as the eye could see, there are wineries and olive groves lining the stepped terraced hillsides. Most of the wineries are passed down from generation to generation and you can really feel the passion of the people and the pride in their wines. The Duoro River runs through the area and valley coming from Spain and spilling into the Atlantic Ocean in Porto. We took a relaxing 1 hour river cruise from the small town Pinhaõ and enjoyed the much different scenery perspective from river level. 

Exploring Tenerife

Having a car made exploring the extremely scenic island of Tenerife very easy. The main highways are well signed and kept in great condition, and with typical European places, filled with roundabouts. The villages and smaller towns tend to have much narrower roads, something very common and you come to expect to see. Tenerife is the largest island within Spain’s Canary Islands and is located off Western Sahara, Africa. The island has a lot to offer with pristine beaches, mountain ranges inland, Mt. Teide - the dormant volcano and highest peak in Spain, wineries, numerous small towns and villages to explore, and banana plantations scattered all about the landscape. 

We took our arrival day as a day to get acclimatized and rest up from our long travel day. After settling in to our room, we took the hotel train down to the beach and spent the afternoon lounging and swimming in the bay. On our way back from our afternoon at the beach, we found the funicular that also serves as providing access to and from the beach and hotel. 

Driving in Tenerife was pretty straight forward and easy. One driving excursion took us on a breathtaking scenic drive along a very narrow road filled with massive turns and insane switchbacks to the small mountain village of Masca. The village is about 650m above sea level and has become a destination drive given the crazy roadway to get there and the hike down the gorge to the ocean. Masca has been nicknamed the “Machu Pichu” of the Canary Island because of one mountain peak that looks very similar to Peru’s Machu Pichu. Masca offers stunning views of the Atlantic Ocean, and the Teno Mountains that surround it. It is home to about 100 habitants and has a unique charm to it as it really is off the beaten track and not overrun by large numbers of tourists; while the road is very drivable to get there, it’s not for the faint of heart which likely deters enough from heading there. With the village built on the mountain there is a lot of walking up and down cobblestone roadways and stairs, which can be slippery even when not wet, in order to explore. 

We know Spain in general has really good wine and while researching what to do in Tenerife, we discovered they are the main producer and exporter of Canarian wines and so we had to include a wine tour of one of the local wineries. We had already tasted some local wine and really took a liking to it. We booked a tour and tasting at Bodega Ferreira, an organic winery situated 1000m above sea level and surrounded by volcanic lava on either side of its property. Throughout the tour we learned about their regenerative wine making process while walking around the grounds and stopping at several spots to taste the wine; all in all we sampled 4 wines and some port. Our tour was a small group, made up of us and three girlfriends travelling from Poland. It was nice to have a small, intimate group like this. 

Afterwards, we decided to drive to Teide National Park to explore the park and Mt. Teide, the island’s dormant volcano and the third highest volcanic structure in the world at 3,700m above sea level. Declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2007, you feel like you’re in another world driving through the park. The volcanic landscape and rock formations make you feel like you’re on the moon. The centre of the park is situated at 2,000m above sea level and at this height, we found ourselves well above the cloud line. The scenery is stunning, with a lot of mirador (viewpoint) stops and Mt. Teide’s peak peeking out above the clouds. You ca take a cable car to the summit, but we were there a bit too late for that and instead enjoyed the scenery and drive through the park. Besides the volcanic landscape, there are forested areas, some of which were clearly burned and scarred in the forest fire the last year. The park is known for its panoramic views, incredible sunset view points and stargazing. Since we were already here and about an hour drive away from our hotel, we decided to head into, Vilaflor, a quaint nearby town for supper at Los Cipreses de la Casa Inglesa. As with many little villages and towns we drove through, the place looked deserted and we thought that perhaps the restaurant was closed, because there was no one around. Lucky for us, the restaurant was open, and we had a fabulous Canarian inspired meal before heading back up the mountain to catch the tail end of a fantastic sunset and wait for complete darkness to see the stars. The star gazing was spectacular and we got a glimpse of Venus and the Milky Way. From where we were standing, we were able to overhear a tour guide explain the various different star formations and galaxies in the sky. 

Another excursion we took was a two-hour sea kayak and snorkel tour. The kayaking was open ocean which I wasn’t entirely keen on, but I ran out of excuses that Z wasn’t able to dispel and so off we went. Thankfully the water was calm on our way out and as we kayaked out, we got to see dolphins, though they were a bit lazy that morning and didn’t fully breach out of the water. Nonetheless it was so cool to see them reasonably up close, we were maybe about 30 feet from them. The pod looked like it was a group of five bluenosed dolphins. The Spanish marine patrol was out in force that day as well and our guide got “pulled over” and grilled about who he was, who he worked for, if thy were licensed, and how many of us were in his group. After about 10 minutes of questioning, we continued on our way to the snorkelling spot where we were supposed to see the resident turtles except that this day there was really much to see at all and the snorkelling turned out to be a non event. I discovered getting back into a sea kayak isn’t as easy as they make it out to be on land. I struggled a lot and thankfully didn’t tip the kayak over, but man was it difficult. After much frustration, I  managed to get myself back in in the least graceful way possible and learned the next day that I managed to severely bruise my thigh in the process. The kayak back was a bit more rough and challenging as the winds had picked up causing more ocean swells and white caps. All in all it was a fun adventure despite my initial reservations. 

Our stay on Tenerife was brief, four days but we maximized our time and explored and experienced a lot of what the island has to offer. It was a fantastic stop before moving on to our next leg, Portugal. Our flight over to Portugal was about two hours on TAP airlines and even on that short of a flight, we had a full lunch service. There is definitely something to non North American airlines having superior service.