Day 68. Wednesday 14 May.

Out of the old Watermillhouse Cottage just after 0900. A short trip today – 85 km making it two hours by taking the longest route with no tolls, and taking it easy. Keeping to the speed limit is very frustrating for the Portuguese drivers behind us, sitting on our tail (but T doesn’t mind).

Even with a slow drive and a stop for coffee we arrived early at a bit after 1230. We would have been even earlier except for Doris sending us up a narrow, rock wall sides, cobblestone path that became progressively narrower and twisted until we wouldn’t fit through at all! That took a lot of reversing…forwarding..reversing until we extracted ourselves – Josie now has some minor matching scratches down the other side front wheel arch protector. We left the car in a safe place and walked to the house – at least Doris got the location right.

Seems that check out is usually 1100 in Portugal and Spain, which is great, but it means check in is later, after 1500. We’d previously asked for an earlier check in and thought that was OK: the translation of the reply in  Portuguese was admittedly a little garbled. Our host Luisa was still in the house when we arrived, but that was fine. D walked back to the car and drove in (eventually) having found a far more reasonable pathway.

Luisa had invited us down for a coffee after we’d unpacked. The coffee turned out to be port: they are winemakers – the brand Casa d’Arca, with a range of reds and whites as well. We chatted with a port at Luisa’s dining table, drawing on Google Translator to exchange family information and social and political commentaries about our countries. ‘Rocky’ the family dog seemed to enjoy D’s teasing with ‘his’ blanket…D certainly had a bit of fun. Luisa’s husband, son and brother are in the  business. We think that a port at lunch time or thereabouts  means that we are becoming enculturated, although rather than returning for a siesta we took a walk to the supermarket. Alijo is a neat modern, well maintained ‘wine town’ and Casa d’Arca is a serious accommodation business, with several properties linked to wine production.

Tomorrow is our Rabelo boat trip on the upper reaches of the Rio Douro.