Happy Ending

Tuesday, November 11, 2025

Our first river cruise came to an end this morning. The reception staff arranged for a taxi to come to the boat and take us to the airport and all went smoothly.

Viking Helgrim docked in Vila Nova de Gaia yesterday

My overall impression of the river cruise was extremely positive. It was quite different from an ocean cruise, but it was very enjoyable. Here are some of the things I loved:

• The beauty of the Douro River Valley
• The small size of the boat - about 104 passengers
• The outstanding hospitality extended to us by the crew
• The excellent food
• The useful information in the daily newsletter and the intelligent programming
• Menus and programs were relevant to the locations we visited
• Good maps of the ports were provided to us
• Most of the time the programming was well-organized and structured
• The “included” tours were enjoyable
• The ship was beautiful and well-designed. For example, all of the passengers could fit in the lounge, yet it did not feel crowded
• They did not try to sell things to us onboard

Here are some of the things I didn’t like:

• It was tiring to have a port and a tour every day, with a lot of time on buses (probably more bus time on the Douro than on other rivers)
• I did not like the particular tour escort for the group we were assigned to. I feel that we missed out on a lot of interesting information. She talked to us as though we were middle school kids.
• The dining room seemed to be understaffed, resulting in slow service

The bottom line: This cruise was wonderful. I would highly recommend it, especially if you are interested in wine.🍷 

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A reader requested the chef’s pastel recipe. Here it is:

################################################# As I mentioned, we went to the Porto airport this morning. Here is the snack we got on the plane.

This is the only photo we managed to take today

Can you guess where our plane landed?

Today’s fabric is “Golden Age of Travel” by taranealart for Spoonflower.

This post is dedicated to LuAnn, who planned it but couldn’t make it.

It’s All Downhill from Here

Monday, November 10, 2025

Today is the last full day of our river cruise. We will remain docked in Porto all day. Actually, we will be across the river from Porto, in Vila Nova de Gaia. 

Our excursion today is “Porto on Foot.” We are going to have a local guide. To start, we will ride to the top of one of Porto’s hills on a bus. Once there, we will have around 30 minutes to explore, and then we will begin walking down to the river and over the bridge, back to our boat.

Porto Cathedral was built in the 12th century. It is Romanesque in architectural style. There are no flying buttresses, and few windows in the massive structure.

Our guide says the saxophonist is here every day

The view from the top

One of the Camino routes has a checkpoint at this cathedral

The upper level of the courtyard is covered with tiles that form murals of religious scenes

Our next stop was São Bento Train Station, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The inside of the station is covered with beautiful tiled murals. The lower tiers feature blue and white tiles. Multi-colored tiles cover some of the upper tiers. The tiles depict historical events, agricultural activities and everyday village life in great detail. This remains an active train station.

We continued downhill to Porto’s most famous street, Rua das Flores, a pedestrianized shopping street.  

We were given free time on Rua das Flores. Unfortunately, just as we arrived, it began to rain. We had relied on the weather report that promised sunny skies, so we had only some small umbrellas. Eventually we found a hot chocolate place where we passed the time with churros and hot chocolate with the consistency of pudding.

By the time we arrived at the riverfront, the rain was more of a mist. We walked past old taverns and warehouses and saw where the different flood stages over the years had left their marks on the walls.

At the Luis I Bridge, we were able to walk across on the lower level, which is supposed to be limited to taxis, but wasn’t. People could be seen on the upper level, but the guide said there was much more traffic, and there were places where there was no railing.

As we walked to our boat on the Gaia side, we saw old wine boats that used to bring the wine from the vineyards down to Porto. Nowadays these boats are used for an annual boat race in which the wineries compete fiercely.

View of Porto from Gaia

View of Porto from Gaia

The Gaia side of the river is where all the wine warehouses used to be. It is very trendy now. The warehouses have been converted into hip, upscale bars and restaurants and boutique hotels.

I enjoyed this informative walk, though I could have done with less free time.

Before dinner, there was a farewell toast because we would all be leaving tomorrow morning.

The senior officers say goodbye. The last three on the right are Chef Cesar, Hugo, and the Captain.

Today’s fabric is “river stars - blue/tangerine” by littlearrowdecor for Spoonflower.

Any Port in a Storm

Sunday, November 9, 2025

We were signed up for a tour to Charming Lamego today, but we decided to stay on the boat and relax instead. The highlight of the tour was described as a hilltop chapel where pilgrims climb up 686 steps on their knees. Someone who went told me they did not see any pilgrims while they were there. Viking passengers can ride to the top on the bus and have the option of walking down.

We have had enough of the bus. There are a few people on our bus who have been coughing every day. They never wear masks. They don’t always cover their mouths when they cough. It’s impossible to avoid them because we are also trying to avoid sitting near the annoying fellow who talks loudly and incessantly. Even though I am still sick, I don’t want their germs.

 So we stayed onboard and had a lovely day enjoying the scenery as we sailed back toward Porto. I don’t feel like we missed out on anything by not going on the tour.

Before dinner there was a Port Wine Demonstration. This involved sampling different types of port wine (tawny, ruby, and white) and a dramatic decanting of a 40-year-old bottle of vintage port. I liked the ruby the best - it was the sweetest.

With the 40-year-old bottle, there is a concern that the cork may have dried out. We don’t want crumbled cork in our wine, so the bottle will be opened using only “fire and ice.” The sommelier chilled the bottle with ice and then applied a flame to the neck and it cracked and fell off without getting shards of glass all over the place. I couldn’t really see what was happening, but I did see the bottle with part of the neck missing.

  

Our evening entertainment was a Tuna Folk Show. A “tuna” is a group of university students who dress in traditional university garb and play guitars and other traditional instruments and sing folk songs.

A group of young men from the University of Porto came onboard to provide the show. They were charming and enthusiastic, though they were clearly not professional musicians or singers. One of the more energetic guys was jumping up and down a lot, and I was very nervous that he was going to hit his head on one of the sprinkler heads on the boat’s low ceiling. He did not, fortunately.

These groups are like clubs. Some have men and women, some are all men, some are all women. Many students stay with their tuna for their entire time at university. They all wear black suits and they fold up their capes and drape them over their left shoulders. Some have academic pins, badges and ribbons attached to their capes.

A couple of the guys were freshmen and obviously didn’t know the words to the songs. See if you can pick them out in this 32-second video.

At the end, the tuna group recruited an audience member to join them in a drinking song.

It’s Ken!

Today’s fabric is “Tune-a-fish Dad Jokes” by amorphousmediaart for Spoonflower.

Muscateers

Saturday, November 8, 2025

We disembarked this morning at Pocinho for an excursion to Favaios and lunch at Quinta Avessada. We are now in the heart of the port wine region.

Not long after we started our bus trip, we had nice views of the river. This is not our boat.

Our buses left the riverfront and started climbing up steep, narrow, winding roads without any sort of guardrails. Not my favorite type of drive. The vineyards all around us were beautiful, with a touch of fall color. 

We ascended more hilly country until we arrived at the village of Favaios (pop. 1,000). Our bus stopped first at the Favaios wine Co-op. Here a local guide discussed the operations of the co-op.  First, he explained a little about port and muscatel. Port wine is a denomination of origin (DO) product, and it is highly regulated. It must be made from grapes grown in the Douro region, and the grapes must be grown at specific altitudes.

The altitude of Favaios is a little too high to meet the port wine standards. The farmers of Favaios tried to get an exemption for their grapes, but they were not successful. Eventually in the 1950’s they succeeded in getting Muscatel classified as a DO wine for grapes grown at a higher altitude. They also formed a cooperative to produce wine from their grapes. It wasn’t possible for the small farmers in the region to produce wine on their own. The co-op started out with 100 farmers, but they now have about 500 members in the cooperative. The wine produced by the co-op has won international prizes and the winery is in operation all year long.

We were shown around the facility while the winemaking process was explained. Unlike most wines, the process for making sweet wines such as port and muscatel is short. They stop the fermentation early so the sugar of the grapes remains in the wine. At the end they add brandy or grappa to fortify the wine. It is not aged for a long time. The result is muscatel, or moscatel, a sweet wine similar to port.

This device measures the sweetness of the grapes when they are delivered to the co-op

In addition to metal tanks, they use concrete tanks, but only for three days

Oak barrels are not always used, but they are used for certain vintages

After tasting some wine, we left the winery and walked through the village to a small  bakery. On the way we passed an old building with a curious sign over the door. This used to be a public school. The girls and boys used separate entrances.

At the bakery, we learned about the distinctive four-cornered bread that is made by hand only in Favaios. We met one of the bakers and watched her make the bread. Then we each got a loaf to eat. It was good, but not “special” other than the shape. Apparently, everyone in the village eats this bread every day, so the few remaining bakers are quite busy.

It was fun to meet the baker as part of a small group of around 15, and see her make the four-cornered loaves. 

Our third stop was a small museum about the bread and wine made in Favaios. It was not much. Most of the information had already been covered in the first two stops. Nevertheless, I appreciated the town’s sense of itself and its history. They figured out what they were good at and how to attract tourists.

We took a very short ride on our bus to Quinta Avessada. A “quinta” is a wine estate. Quinta Avessada seemed to be a restaurant/inn in the middle of acres of vineyards. It had a lovely view. We had some wine on the patio while we waited for the other buses.

The black stakes you can see among the grapevines are not wood - they are schist (similar to slate) and very heavy. They absorb heat from the sun and transfer it to the ground to keep it warmer

We had a country-style Portuguese lunch inside the restaurant. With wine, of course.

The drive back down to the river offered some stunning views. The boat quickly departed and we saw the loveliest scenery on both sides of the river.

Olive trees and grape vines

Hugo gave his nightly presentation, including the weird Portuguese phrase for today: Calado és poeta, or “In silence, you are a poet.” In other words, you sound better when you don’t speak.

The final event before dinner was the VES cocktail party for all the passengers who have been guests on Viking previously. You really don’t need to buy the drinks package on this cruise - there are so many free drinks.

We chose not to attend the game night tonight. We have had several long days in a row and it was nice to go back to our cabin a little earlier. The boat spent the night in Régua, a quiet town.

Today’s fabric is damask. A damask fabric has a reversible woven pattern.It is often found in table linens, such as this napkin from our lunch at Quinta Avessanda.