Our 3 day trip to the Douro
Sep 22nd, 2008, 01:52 AM
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Our 3 day trip to the Douro
I got some help from this board for this trip, and I hope maybe this can help someone out in return. We took a three day trip up to the Douro, leaving Lisbon around 8 am on a Sunday, returning Tuesday around midnight -- so it was a full three days. Early September is a super time to go. We had been there in March before, and though it was still beautiful, it's hard to beat September with the sun, warm temps, and about a bazillion grapes hanging off the vines. So here are my notes from our trip:
Day 1 – Drove to Cinfaes by noon, started winding east on the Douro. We took the Michelin Green Guide’s recommended detour before Resende, up in the hills to find the romanesque church of Santa Maria de Carcare, which is where we planned to eat our lunch. The best part of that detour was that we came across the Sao Joao Penedo lookout point, a very nice spot for seeing the Douro up and down, and it had lots of tables with beautiful views down to the Douro, a great picnic spot. Then we continued on, about another 10 km and found the church, but it was, shall we say, disappointing.
But the views had been worth it, we meandered down, along the river (7 km up above Pinhao was our goal for the night). It was a beautiful day, we alternated between being on river level (had a coffee on a cafe’s deck about 5 feet from the water) and going up to look down over the river and the vineyards.
Our one disappointment was that we decided to take a 10 km detour up to Lamego to try to see what is reputed to be Portugal’s oldest church, with visigothic and other pre-romanesque elements. The church, Sao Pedro de Balsemao, is about 3 km southeast of Lamego. We came in from the north and found that all traffic through town was completely cut because it was the town’s annual festival days. So we couldn’t easily get to the church and decided not to try to find it with the very complicated alternative directions locals gave us. We also decided to forego the festivities and get back on the beautiful Douro River. I can’t really describe the beauty, the sun was bright, sky clear, river deep blue, and the hills on either side, it was just georgeous.
By 6:30, we had made our way to Pinhao and up to the little village of Casal dos Loivos, where we stayed at http://www.casadecasaldeloivos.com/. This place, though it gets very high reviews on TripAdvisor, is NOT an upscale inn. It’s an old home, very outdated, bathroom about like what you’d expect in a 2-star pension, BUT the views are outstanding, just unbelievable. You can walk all around the grounds, which include a pretty extensive winery and it’s a wonderful spot. There’s a big terrace with chairs which made for a nice time sitting and watching the sun go down, enjoying a dry pre-dinner Port. The dinner, at 25E each (excluding wine), was about the same quality as the bathroom. It was totally unremarkable, bad uninspired cooking. Breakfast wasn’t much better. BUT we’d do it again in a heartbeat just for the views. I had really looked around for a place near Pinhao with a view. The other highly rated places, the Quinta de la Rosa and the Vintage House, are down on the river itself, and though they are in very nice places, that just can’t hold a candle to being up and looking down on the river. We had stayed a few years earlier in the Pousada at Mesao Frio, which also has stunning river views and is up high, but its location was not good for this year’s trip.
Day 1 – Drove to Cinfaes by noon, started winding east on the Douro. We took the Michelin Green Guide’s recommended detour before Resende, up in the hills to find the romanesque church of Santa Maria de Carcare, which is where we planned to eat our lunch. The best part of that detour was that we came across the Sao Joao Penedo lookout point, a very nice spot for seeing the Douro up and down, and it had lots of tables with beautiful views down to the Douro, a great picnic spot. Then we continued on, about another 10 km and found the church, but it was, shall we say, disappointing.
But the views had been worth it, we meandered down, along the river (7 km up above Pinhao was our goal for the night). It was a beautiful day, we alternated between being on river level (had a coffee on a cafe’s deck about 5 feet from the water) and going up to look down over the river and the vineyards.
Our one disappointment was that we decided to take a 10 km detour up to Lamego to try to see what is reputed to be Portugal’s oldest church, with visigothic and other pre-romanesque elements. The church, Sao Pedro de Balsemao, is about 3 km southeast of Lamego. We came in from the north and found that all traffic through town was completely cut because it was the town’s annual festival days. So we couldn’t easily get to the church and decided not to try to find it with the very complicated alternative directions locals gave us. We also decided to forego the festivities and get back on the beautiful Douro River. I can’t really describe the beauty, the sun was bright, sky clear, river deep blue, and the hills on either side, it was just georgeous.
By 6:30, we had made our way to Pinhao and up to the little village of Casal dos Loivos, where we stayed at http://www.casadecasaldeloivos.com/. This place, though it gets very high reviews on TripAdvisor, is NOT an upscale inn. It’s an old home, very outdated, bathroom about like what you’d expect in a 2-star pension, BUT the views are outstanding, just unbelievable. You can walk all around the grounds, which include a pretty extensive winery and it’s a wonderful spot. There’s a big terrace with chairs which made for a nice time sitting and watching the sun go down, enjoying a dry pre-dinner Port. The dinner, at 25E each (excluding wine), was about the same quality as the bathroom. It was totally unremarkable, bad uninspired cooking. Breakfast wasn’t much better. BUT we’d do it again in a heartbeat just for the views. I had really looked around for a place near Pinhao with a view. The other highly rated places, the Quinta de la Rosa and the Vintage House, are down on the river itself, and though they are in very nice places, that just can’t hold a candle to being up and looking down on the river. We had stayed a few years earlier in the Pousada at Mesao Frio, which also has stunning river views and is up high, but its location was not good for this year’s trip.
Sep 22nd, 2008, 01:56 AM
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Day 2 – Visiting Vineyards
We had an 11:00 appointment for a visit of the Quinta de la Rosa, a winery about 2 km outside of Pinhao. That gave us plenty of time to enjoy the views up where we had slept, take a couple more strolls, and get to the Quinta for the tour. This is one of the lodging options for Pinhao, we talked to people who stayed here and liked it a lot, but as I said, we wanted to be up high. Continuing up past the Quinta also takes you up to great places for strolling around and looking down over the river, but the Quinta itself is pretty low.
The tour of the winery was short and basic, but they gave at least 7 or 8 wines for tasting (as the driver I didn’t take more than a sip of one or two, but everyone else was really enjoying it!) After buying some olive oil and a bottle or two, we decided to drive to Sao Joao de Pesqueira for lunch – this gave us about 16 km drive deep into vineyard country away from the river. Very nice views, a decent lunch, but nothing beats the views right on the Douro!
After lunch we went back to the river road, and right near the N323 turnoff, about 6 km west of Pinhao, we went to the Penascal winery. This is part of the Fonseca company, a very well known and highly regarded port winemaker. Their tour focused more on the vineyards (Quinta de la Rosa didn’t take us to the vineyards at all, just through the stomping rooms, the barrel rooms, etc). Everyone gets a little headset with recorded tour and you just follow the map to the six different points and at each point you get a perfect English rendition of the history of the vineyard, the process of making wine, the process of cultivating grapes, how they terrace, etc etc. And at the same time you were walking in a beautiful vineyard, looking down on a Douro tributary, soaking it all in. Tastes afterwards were not as extensive as in the other, but perfectly adequate, DH picked out a bottle or two and we were off.
By now it was about 4:30 and we wanted to get to our night’s destination, Penedono, by 7 or so. It was about an hour’s drive by my calculation, so that gave us some stopping along the way time. I should explain where we were going here – since I wanted to make a circle trip from Lisbon, I figured that we would go into the Douro on the west side and leave on the east side. Leaving on the east side put us very close to the Upper Beiras region (north of Guarda, Belmonte, etc.). There are many fortified village towns there that we didn’t know, as well as a Paleolithic rock drawing site that had been turned into a national monument). So, our Douro itinerary, which focused on the strip between Cinfaes on the west and Pinhao on the east, led very easily to a continuation to the upper Beiras on the N323.
On the N323 after Tarouca, we saw several signs for a romanesque church Sao Pedro de Aguias. First we came to a turnoff for the “mosteiro de Sao Pedro” and thought that might be it, so we went down a km or two to find nothing remotely connected with romanesque. There were a couple of fig trees with tons of unpicked ripe figs, so we indulged. Back on the highway, a few km further, we saw a turnoff for the church Sao Pedro de Aguias. since the sign assured us it was only 3 km away, we gave it a try. Oh it is beautiful, a little romanesque hermitage built right up about 5 ft from huge boulders, with a stream below and lots of green everywhere. Two doors with nice tympanums, lots of capitals, and a beautiful peaceful vantage point. Just an A+ turnoff!
After Sao Pedro, we decided to stop in Sernalcelhe, a town about 16 km from our night’s destination. This town also has an old church, lots of old stone buildings (one particularly nice solar – solar is an old mansion house, this was XVI century), a nice walk up to a lookout point down over the town. We got a personal tour of the inside of the church by the village priest who was opening it up for 6 pm mass. Then on to Penedo, where we arrived just about 7 pm as we had hoped. We stayed in the very nice Estalagem de Penedo, www.estalagemdepenedo.com.pt – not a luxury place by any means, but in an old building right across from the very nice castle tower that I took a million pictures of – amazing shape, beautiful crenellated top, perched high on a boulder looking down on the town. Penedo is a small town with a nice core of well maintained ancient stone houses (and its fair share of run-down derelict stone houses waiting for restoration). Lots of flowers, lots of lace curtains. We had a water with gas sitting right in the main square, with the tower and pillory right in front of us and the stone houses all around. It was a very nice place to relax and to spend the night. Dinner options were limited, we ate in the hotel. Standard, nothing fancy or special but totally edible.
We had an 11:00 appointment for a visit of the Quinta de la Rosa, a winery about 2 km outside of Pinhao. That gave us plenty of time to enjoy the views up where we had slept, take a couple more strolls, and get to the Quinta for the tour. This is one of the lodging options for Pinhao, we talked to people who stayed here and liked it a lot, but as I said, we wanted to be up high. Continuing up past the Quinta also takes you up to great places for strolling around and looking down over the river, but the Quinta itself is pretty low.
The tour of the winery was short and basic, but they gave at least 7 or 8 wines for tasting (as the driver I didn’t take more than a sip of one or two, but everyone else was really enjoying it!) After buying some olive oil and a bottle or two, we decided to drive to Sao Joao de Pesqueira for lunch – this gave us about 16 km drive deep into vineyard country away from the river. Very nice views, a decent lunch, but nothing beats the views right on the Douro!
After lunch we went back to the river road, and right near the N323 turnoff, about 6 km west of Pinhao, we went to the Penascal winery. This is part of the Fonseca company, a very well known and highly regarded port winemaker. Their tour focused more on the vineyards (Quinta de la Rosa didn’t take us to the vineyards at all, just through the stomping rooms, the barrel rooms, etc). Everyone gets a little headset with recorded tour and you just follow the map to the six different points and at each point you get a perfect English rendition of the history of the vineyard, the process of making wine, the process of cultivating grapes, how they terrace, etc etc. And at the same time you were walking in a beautiful vineyard, looking down on a Douro tributary, soaking it all in. Tastes afterwards were not as extensive as in the other, but perfectly adequate, DH picked out a bottle or two and we were off.
By now it was about 4:30 and we wanted to get to our night’s destination, Penedono, by 7 or so. It was about an hour’s drive by my calculation, so that gave us some stopping along the way time. I should explain where we were going here – since I wanted to make a circle trip from Lisbon, I figured that we would go into the Douro on the west side and leave on the east side. Leaving on the east side put us very close to the Upper Beiras region (north of Guarda, Belmonte, etc.). There are many fortified village towns there that we didn’t know, as well as a Paleolithic rock drawing site that had been turned into a national monument). So, our Douro itinerary, which focused on the strip between Cinfaes on the west and Pinhao on the east, led very easily to a continuation to the upper Beiras on the N323.
On the N323 after Tarouca, we saw several signs for a romanesque church Sao Pedro de Aguias. First we came to a turnoff for the “mosteiro de Sao Pedro” and thought that might be it, so we went down a km or two to find nothing remotely connected with romanesque. There were a couple of fig trees with tons of unpicked ripe figs, so we indulged. Back on the highway, a few km further, we saw a turnoff for the church Sao Pedro de Aguias. since the sign assured us it was only 3 km away, we gave it a try. Oh it is beautiful, a little romanesque hermitage built right up about 5 ft from huge boulders, with a stream below and lots of green everywhere. Two doors with nice tympanums, lots of capitals, and a beautiful peaceful vantage point. Just an A+ turnoff!
After Sao Pedro, we decided to stop in Sernalcelhe, a town about 16 km from our night’s destination. This town also has an old church, lots of old stone buildings (one particularly nice solar – solar is an old mansion house, this was XVI century), a nice walk up to a lookout point down over the town. We got a personal tour of the inside of the church by the village priest who was opening it up for 6 pm mass. Then on to Penedo, where we arrived just about 7 pm as we had hoped. We stayed in the very nice Estalagem de Penedo, www.estalagemdepenedo.com.pt – not a luxury place by any means, but in an old building right across from the very nice castle tower that I took a million pictures of – amazing shape, beautiful crenellated top, perched high on a boulder looking down on the town. Penedo is a small town with a nice core of well maintained ancient stone houses (and its fair share of run-down derelict stone houses waiting for restoration). Lots of flowers, lots of lace curtains. We had a water with gas sitting right in the main square, with the tower and pillory right in front of us and the stone houses all around. It was a very nice place to relax and to spend the night. Dinner options were limited, we ate in the hotel. Standard, nothing fancy or special but totally edible.
Sep 22nd, 2008, 02:02 AM
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Day 3 – We had reservations to visit the park of Vila Nova de Foz Coa. I had a hard time getting good inside information on which of the three possible sites to visit, so I just took the one that had a tour that fit our timetable the best. There are three sites, we went to Canada do Inferno (which leaves from Vila Nova itself), the other two are at Muxagata or Castelo Melhor. The trips are all 2-3 hours long, so one was enough for this trip. I would definitely give another a try if we are back in the area, because it was quite enjoyable walking along the Coa river for a km or two and then staring at these animal drawings on the rocks (not drawings really, they are scratchings done with quartz in the shape of animals). Because no paint was used, there is no way to date them with carbon dating or whatever they use for all those paleolithic cave paintings, so the dates are very approximate. These paintings could be between 10,000 and 40,000 years old, just boggles the mind.
Now, I will admit that some of them required a whole lot of imagination and concentration to see (for me, it was frequently kind of like finding figures in the stars, I never can find the hunter, or the animals up there either). A couple of them were clear as day, though, wow, there were horses and other animals carved into the rocks. Our guide had a lot of detailed replicas of the rock faces we were staring at, with colored drawings of the animals so you could really see them better if you looked at her drawings and then over at the paintings. But some, even with that visual aid, were just impossible for me to make out. Nevertheless, it is quite a humbling awe-inspiring thing to be looking at something done by human beings such an unimaginable amount of time ago!
After our tour, we decided to drive to Castelo Melhor (another one of the eastern fortified towns) for lunch. Well, it’s castle was in ruins (though we climbed up and had our standard great view over the surrounding area) and there was one closed restaurant. Luckily, we had only gone about 15 km from Foz Coa, so we headed back there for a nice lunch on a shaded patio on the pedestrian street. Decent food, nothing gourmet. I would skip Castelo Melhor unless you are going to take a rock art tour from there.
After lunch it was about 2:30 or 3:00 and we decided we had at most 5 more hours before we wanted to be on the road home to Lisbon. So, looking at the map, we saw that there were two more of these castle towns heading south towards Guarda, Marialva and Trancoso. We decided to stop at one or both depending on time. First stop, Marialva. Now this is an incredible castle complex, we were able to enjoy walking around it a very leisurely, solitary hour. There’s an old ruined city inside the castle walls with churches and chapels, and you can walk the entire perimeter on the walls, has a nice keep, just a great place to explore. It is really charming. There is also a pretty upscale inn-lodging called Casa do Coro. It looked like a small complex, with a pool, and lots of individual little houses for rent. Seems like it would be an excellent base for touring the area, because getting in and out of Marialva is simple as pie and it’s right on a good national road.
Luckily, we still had time to take a look at Trancoso. It’s a much bigger place than Marialva, but access in is easy, there’s a huge parking lot right outside the walls, and the tourist office is very friendly and gives you a great map. The old town is completely surrounded with one kilometer of totally in-tact walls (with old gates still used for access). It was remarkable, a lively little town with a very nice feel to it. We had a cold drink in a café in the main square, near the standard church, pillory, etc., walked the walls, explored some of the old Jewish quarter, and the medieval quarter near the castle (castle now closed for renovation). Nice way to end the touring! On the way out, we passed a huge, and I mean huge, municipal park with amazing old growth trees. If we had had time, a walk through that inviting place would have been very nice. But we were on our way to Lisbon. We wanted to bring the rental car back to the airport that evening.
The drive back to Lisbon took a bit longer than we had planned. About 1 ½ hours along the way, on the other side of the road we saw a horrific accident, with a truck totally blocking the highway and the cab crashed into the ground on the median. It must have happened only minutes before we passed, because people were running towards it and there were only 3 or 4 cars stopped behind it. We pulled into the gas station about 2 km down the road only to learn that their computers had stopped working and we couldn’t get gas. Great, we were on empty. After about a 45 minute wait, they decided they could take their special keys and open up the gates to the road over the highway that connects the rest stop we were in with its companion rest stop on the other side, so that we could use that station’s gas pumps. By the time we got over there and filled up, the back-up of traffic from the accident had reached the rest stop, so cars were piling in. The nice gas station attendant who took us over and back to the other side made sure we were pointed in the right direction to get back on the highway. As we left he was involved in a lot of very animated discussions about whether he could let streams of traffic cross over and get on the highway in the other direction so as to avoid the back-up from the accident. I’m sure this was one big mess with probably a very tragic ending for the driver of the truck. But fortunately, we made it to the Lisbon airport before the car rental office closed (the guy told me they stay open till 1 a.m.) and we were able to drop off the rental car no problem. In fact, it was one of the most hassle-free drop-offs I can remember in Portugal, without the inch by inch scrutiny to see if there was a nick on the car that wasn’t there when we picked it up. We used Carjet again, they always work through Budget in our experience, and the prices always seem to be the best.
So, that's a pretty fast paced itinerary, I don't think I'd enjoy traveling at this pace for more than three days, but for this short amount of time it worked very well for us.
The Douro is BEAUTIFUL!
Now, I will admit that some of them required a whole lot of imagination and concentration to see (for me, it was frequently kind of like finding figures in the stars, I never can find the hunter, or the animals up there either). A couple of them were clear as day, though, wow, there were horses and other animals carved into the rocks. Our guide had a lot of detailed replicas of the rock faces we were staring at, with colored drawings of the animals so you could really see them better if you looked at her drawings and then over at the paintings. But some, even with that visual aid, were just impossible for me to make out. Nevertheless, it is quite a humbling awe-inspiring thing to be looking at something done by human beings such an unimaginable amount of time ago!
After our tour, we decided to drive to Castelo Melhor (another one of the eastern fortified towns) for lunch. Well, it’s castle was in ruins (though we climbed up and had our standard great view over the surrounding area) and there was one closed restaurant. Luckily, we had only gone about 15 km from Foz Coa, so we headed back there for a nice lunch on a shaded patio on the pedestrian street. Decent food, nothing gourmet. I would skip Castelo Melhor unless you are going to take a rock art tour from there.
After lunch it was about 2:30 or 3:00 and we decided we had at most 5 more hours before we wanted to be on the road home to Lisbon. So, looking at the map, we saw that there were two more of these castle towns heading south towards Guarda, Marialva and Trancoso. We decided to stop at one or both depending on time. First stop, Marialva. Now this is an incredible castle complex, we were able to enjoy walking around it a very leisurely, solitary hour. There’s an old ruined city inside the castle walls with churches and chapels, and you can walk the entire perimeter on the walls, has a nice keep, just a great place to explore. It is really charming. There is also a pretty upscale inn-lodging called Casa do Coro. It looked like a small complex, with a pool, and lots of individual little houses for rent. Seems like it would be an excellent base for touring the area, because getting in and out of Marialva is simple as pie and it’s right on a good national road.
Luckily, we still had time to take a look at Trancoso. It’s a much bigger place than Marialva, but access in is easy, there’s a huge parking lot right outside the walls, and the tourist office is very friendly and gives you a great map. The old town is completely surrounded with one kilometer of totally in-tact walls (with old gates still used for access). It was remarkable, a lively little town with a very nice feel to it. We had a cold drink in a café in the main square, near the standard church, pillory, etc., walked the walls, explored some of the old Jewish quarter, and the medieval quarter near the castle (castle now closed for renovation). Nice way to end the touring! On the way out, we passed a huge, and I mean huge, municipal park with amazing old growth trees. If we had had time, a walk through that inviting place would have been very nice. But we were on our way to Lisbon. We wanted to bring the rental car back to the airport that evening.
The drive back to Lisbon took a bit longer than we had planned. About 1 ½ hours along the way, on the other side of the road we saw a horrific accident, with a truck totally blocking the highway and the cab crashed into the ground on the median. It must have happened only minutes before we passed, because people were running towards it and there were only 3 or 4 cars stopped behind it. We pulled into the gas station about 2 km down the road only to learn that their computers had stopped working and we couldn’t get gas. Great, we were on empty. After about a 45 minute wait, they decided they could take their special keys and open up the gates to the road over the highway that connects the rest stop we were in with its companion rest stop on the other side, so that we could use that station’s gas pumps. By the time we got over there and filled up, the back-up of traffic from the accident had reached the rest stop, so cars were piling in. The nice gas station attendant who took us over and back to the other side made sure we were pointed in the right direction to get back on the highway. As we left he was involved in a lot of very animated discussions about whether he could let streams of traffic cross over and get on the highway in the other direction so as to avoid the back-up from the accident. I’m sure this was one big mess with probably a very tragic ending for the driver of the truck. But fortunately, we made it to the Lisbon airport before the car rental office closed (the guy told me they stay open till 1 a.m.) and we were able to drop off the rental car no problem. In fact, it was one of the most hassle-free drop-offs I can remember in Portugal, without the inch by inch scrutiny to see if there was a nick on the car that wasn’t there when we picked it up. We used Carjet again, they always work through Budget in our experience, and the prices always seem to be the best.
So, that's a pretty fast paced itinerary, I don't think I'd enjoy traveling at this pace for more than three days, but for this short amount of time it worked very well for us.
The Douro is BEAUTIFUL!
Jun 27th, 2009, 03:32 AM
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I thought I'd update this with a few comments since I have just spent another few days in the Douro Valley. I found a terrific place to stay, near Mesao Frio (a nice small town in itself with a very good tasca/restaurant). It's Casa de Canilhas, http://www.canilhas.com/ It's about 1 km up the hill from the Pousada and has a MUCH better view. I spent three nights there, and sitting out on the little terrace outside our room drinking local red wine was just wonderful(I've found that the Douro red wine is really good, I think they've shifted a fair amount of vines from Port to red wine). Prices were very reasonable, 80E including a very ample breakfast. The pool is great at the end of the day.
One thing I hadn't done in my previous trips was take a train up the valley. From Regua, it's about 1 1/2 hours, only 1 hour from Pinhao, and the trip from Pinhao to Poucinho (end of the line) is simply spectacular. Incredibly cheap tickets, we had the train almost all to ourselves after Pinhao on a late June weekday. Many people got out in Pinhao, which IMO was a big mistake -- there is very little to do or see there, and the scenery east of Pinhao cannot be beat.
The train has about a 40 minute stop in Poucinho. There are two cafes, one in the station (where we bought some homemade wine which I haven't yet tried) and one up the road. Just time enough for a cold drink before the return trip. It is a simply beautiful trip. Laurie
One thing I hadn't done in my previous trips was take a train up the valley. From Regua, it's about 1 1/2 hours, only 1 hour from Pinhao, and the trip from Pinhao to Poucinho (end of the line) is simply spectacular. Incredibly cheap tickets, we had the train almost all to ourselves after Pinhao on a late June weekday. Many people got out in Pinhao, which IMO was a big mistake -- there is very little to do or see there, and the scenery east of Pinhao cannot be beat.
The train has about a 40 minute stop in Poucinho. There are two cafes, one in the station (where we bought some homemade wine which I haven't yet tried) and one up the road. Just time enough for a cold drink before the return trip. It is a simply beautiful trip. Laurie
Jun 27th, 2009, 05:17 AM
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Hi Laurie. This area is so picuturesque amd it is a place that many of us never get to see. And we spent not nearly enough time there.
This report makes me want to go back. Now. I would have to go back through old posts but I am thinking that MattfromEngland did post something on these trains a while back.
Thanks.
This report makes me want to go back. Now. I would have to go back through old posts but I am thinking that MattfromEngland did post something on these trains a while back.
Thanks.
Jul 5th, 2009, 04:24 PM
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Thanks Laurie for the great info. We will be in the Duoro Valley in September and sounds like we'll be there the right time of year. We are staying at Quinto do Passadouro in Pinhao. Can you tell me more about the train - is it a return trip; can we get on in Pinhao and go to the end? Thanks!
Jul 5th, 2009, 11:18 PM
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Hi, Lily,
The train is just the regular train that runs from Porto to Pocinho. It's about 6E for a round trip, and takes an hour each way with a 40 minute layover in Pocinho. I found on the Portuguese train site (www.cp.pt) that trains leave Pinhao at 9:43, 11:42, and 15:57. Leaving from Regua is about a half hour earlier, but since you're staying close to Pinhao that makes a lot more sense. And the most spectacular scenery is after Pinhao anyway. I think you'll love it.
p.s. I visited the Quinta do Passadouro in 2005 but didn't stay there. The young Dutch couple who were managing the estate were very nice and very eager to show us everything. I don't know if they're still there or not -- and we liked their wine a lot, too!
The train is just the regular train that runs from Porto to Pocinho. It's about 6E for a round trip, and takes an hour each way with a 40 minute layover in Pocinho. I found on the Portuguese train site (www.cp.pt) that trains leave Pinhao at 9:43, 11:42, and 15:57. Leaving from Regua is about a half hour earlier, but since you're staying close to Pinhao that makes a lot more sense. And the most spectacular scenery is after Pinhao anyway. I think you'll love it.
p.s. I visited the Quinta do Passadouro in 2005 but didn't stay there. The young Dutch couple who were managing the estate were very nice and very eager to show us everything. I don't know if they're still there or not -- and we liked their wine a lot, too!
