Pinhao or Mesao Frio for Douro Stay?
 

Is one more attractive or more interesting? Planning on spending a couple of days exploring the Douro area. Probably we'll rent a car from Porto. We are going to try to take the train ride from Pinhao to Pochino and also a short boat ride from Pinhao. I was looking at Casa de Canilhas in Maseo Frio or Casa do Visconde de Chanceleiros in Pinhao. Smaller hotels or B&Bs with beautiful views are my preference. Any thoughts on these two?

We stayed at Casa do Visconde de Chanceleiros last May for 3-4 nights and really enjoyed our stay. Lovely BnB with nice rooms and grounds. Also some nice views, but certainly not as spectacular as you get in parts of the duroro which I loved! We also had dinners there which were very good. We used it as a base to explore the area which is stunning. It's about a 10 minutes ride to the train station in Pinhao. Definitely take the train ride from Pinhao to Pochino.

Mesao Frio isn't on the Rio Douro and Pinhão is rather small. For accommodations, you should look at Casa de Gouvães (www.casadegouvaes.com), Quinta do Pégo (quintadopego.com) and Quinta Vallado (www.quintadovallado.com). The last two are wine hotels.

Good information, thank you.