July 15, 2019 Day 4
Left Porto this morning heading toward Amarante a few hours away. A confusion of roads leaving Porto but fortunately Dave, Sasha and Google maps were able to navigate us out to the highway. Expected to be in the countryside but there was a lot of development and small towns outside of Porto. We made our first stop in Amarante, a beautiful small down with a river running through it, narrow winding streets, and a reputation for its church, cream tarts and phallic (really) pastries. We had lunch in a small restaurant. Dave had warned us the portion sizes were very large in the country side as it was sure the case with lunch. We took two large doggie bags with us and finished up the meal for our dinner.
Our second stop was at the Casa de Mateus, well known for it cheap rose wine with bottles that turned into candleholders in the ‘70’s. Apparently they didn’t make the wine, which was only sold to the North American market for $2 a bottle, just sold the image for the label. The Casa is known for its grandeur and its formal boxwood gardens, that were indeed quit impressive.
Back on the road and onto Quinta da Barrocca, up on a ridge outside of Armamar, our lodging for the next 3 nights. The lodgings, which are really nice, are in the centre of a vineyard and orchard on the hillside overlooking the Duoro River. It wasn’t long before we were taking a dip in the pool and enjoying the heat and view. Dinner was leftovers from lunch, a bottle of Portuguese wine, as we watched the sun sink beyond the hills. Lovely.
This featured blog entry was written by fredgailmiller from the blog Gail/Fred/Portugal/2019.
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