We made an early start this morning. And headed into the mountains of Northern Portugal. From here, the river Douro winds its way through the terraced vineyards that provide some of the very best Portuguese, wine and Port wine. The weather gods were kind and we took a cruise along the river for a few hours. As you do.
Lunch was provided by our crew and it was excellent – we don’t go anywhere on this tour without excellent lunches.
We continued on to the very pretty city of Porto and checked into our hotel. After a short break for a siesta and a shower (or in my case, a siesta in the shower) it was time for us to make an evening visit to Taylor’s, who are one of the leading port wine producers in the area. A very nice young lady talked to us about how Port wine is made and showed us round the impressive cellars.
One of the iconic symbols of Portugal is the rooster (or Cockerel) of Barcelos and we found this Big Boy strolling in the gardens, as if he owned the place.
As we left, we got a wonderful view over the city illuminated at night. Not a bad day really!
TimOnTheTrain 
Hi Tim
Hope all well with you and Mrs H?
We returned last week from a hol in Northern Portugal, based mainly in Porto.
I’ve now done port tastings at both Taylors and Burmester and found B’s to be the better of the two.
Took a short but nice tram trip to Foz in a vintage tram – well worth it. Then a day trip to Guimares by local train from the charming tiled Sao Bento station – G is about an hour away. Plenty to do there, cable car, castle, ancient town centre.
Finally a trip down to Aveiro – Venice of Portugal (!), nice place for a couple of nights – accessible by train but we drove. Car essential for us allowing a visit to Napoleonic battlefield at Busaco..,
Keep up the posts Tim!
All best Chris
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Hi Chris. Great to hear from you again. What a comprehensive itinerary. You ran there! And what a great part of the world to do it in. Our tour is slightly more high speed. We have a lot of ground cover in a relatively short time, so we can only skin the surface. Some of our other tours give us a longer in the Faro area, so I’ll keep these points in mind for my next visit. Great to hear from you. PS we’ve just had a private hire tram tour in Lisbon, so we got the tram thing covered. 🚋🚋😁
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Good oh Tim, v nice to hear from you. My email address is christurner@axtenaviation.co.uk
Please drop me a line when you get a moment. I’ve got some Wellington-related Salamanca info for you!
All v best
Chris
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