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.🍷 

*******************************************************************

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.