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.