Rivers and vineyards

Oh, wow, what a day. We made about a 75 km circle that took us up and down and around, to a neolithic hill fort in Sabrosa, to the Mateus estate (how can such a beautiful place produce such bad wine?! — maybe that’s unfair because maybe I have only had the really cheap rosé wine in the brown ceramic bottle that we used to burn candles in so they would drip all over the bottle. )

The townspeople were making a carpet of flowers for tomorrow’s procession of the Virgen das Prazeres. They told us they had started at 7 am and would finish by 3 am. Mass at 7 sharp and then the procession to destroy their 20 hours of work.

From there all through vineyards, down to the river and then back up again, each vista more gorgeous than the last. We ended with a trip up to the miradouro in Casal de Loivos, which I had remembered from previous trips.

We will finish off the day with dinner in a fairly fancy place, DOC, right on the river about a 15 minute walk from our lovely Quinta da Azenha.Read more