The Pantzers parlay Portugal

June 21 : Pinhao

Pinhao is a very quaint hilltop village, famed for the artwork on its railway station (more on that later), so I thought I would get up early and explore the village. I headed out at 6.30 am, dutifully collecting a boarding pass so they knew who was out and about. I had to walk through an adjacent ship to get to the dock (it’s common for ships to be doubled up next to a dock, in order to fit more in).

Pinhao is a very hilly village with great views of the Douro and you can just see where the ships are docked.

After the walk, I made my way back to the ship, only to find that there was only one ship now….and it wasn’t mine! Where had the Estrela gone? Would the ship that remained take me to it?

Well, the Estrela had moved to the other side of town, across the pedestrian bridge. When I finally located it, the service desk manager apologised, telling me that he didn’t know the ship was going to move at the time I left it.

After breakfast, we visited the Pinhao railway station, built during the 19th century.

In 1937, the station received the tile panels that make it famous. There are 24 panels covering almost all the walls of the station, and they tell the story of wine production in the valley.

Bullocks helped to move the barrels of wine, and because it was so hot during summer, they were given “hats” and shades for their eyes.

The tile above shows how the workers dressed. They wore dresses made of straw to protect them from the heat (it probably also made them itchy!).

Then we drove along the side of a mountain to reach Quinta da Sao Luis, which is recognised by wine connoisseurs as one of the most important vineyards in the Douro valley. The brand name is Kopke. It is really interesting to see the lines of vines across the hillside. The grapes are mainly picked manually, because of the difficulty in having a machine navigate the terrain.

Beautiful views from the vineyard

We were shown through the operations of the vineyard, and of course did a wine tasting….

Much cooler day today (only 29 degs) so we lounged around the sundeck in the afternoon.

After dinner, we were entertained by a Portuguese folk band, who got us all up dancing….