Our flight home from Lisbon, Portugal departed about 7:20am after a 4:00am wake-up call and a 5:00 bus ride to the airport. The two-hour flight took us to London, England, where we arrived about 10:00am local time. We had a four-hour layover before departing at 2:00pm for San Diego. We enjoyed lunch with two of our traveling companions, Stephanie and Carl from Ramona at a restaurant called Giraffe. We arrived home in San Diego about 5:30pm, exhausted from a long trip and happy to be home. 

Thanks to our friends Ric and Kevin for originally suggesting the trip and for their friendship and fun times together. Thanks to our Program manager, Patricia and Concierge, Lidia for their endless energy and enthusiasm throughout our trip. They kept us going in the right direction, kept us on time, suggested places to see and places to eat. Thanks to our traveling companions for providing humor, stories of their lives and the adventure of travel. 

This was a free day for us to explore the city on our own. Kent stayed in the hotel room to rest as he is still recovering from his fall from the bus in Madrid. Mark took a free shuttle from the hotel with Miriam and Paul to the city center. Once in the city center we explored some of the shopping streets and walked along the waterfront. We stopped at an outdoor coffee stand for coffee and a banana bread. After a rest we stopped in at a currency museum where they display all types of currency from around the world. The security was very tight at the museum as they have all types of valuable coins, bills, gold bars, etc. from all over the world and from hundreds of years ago until today. They showed how coins are pressed from sheets of metal and how paper for bills is produced and then printed. It was all very interesting. 

We had an early dinner with six of our fellow travel companions at the same Italian restaurant that we had dinner in last night. It was early to bed as we have a 4:00am wake up call. 

We began the day with an enormous buffet breakfast served in the dining room at the hotel. The hotel has 400 rooms so it is a very large dining room and the buffet has a bit of everything to offer. They cooked eggs any way you like them, waffles, ham, sausages, bacon, breads, pastries, cheeses and cold cuts, fresh fruits, cereals, muesli, juices, coffee, teas and much more. They also had a pianist who played a grand piano during breakfast. 

Next was a four-hour guided panoramic and walking tour of Lisbon including Lisbon’s famous Belem Tower, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Belem Tower, officially the Tower of Saint Vincent is a 16^th Century fortification that served as a point of embarkation or disembarkation for Portuguese explorers and as a ceremonial gateway to Lisbon. The beautifully ornate, four-story seaside tower is about 40-feet wide and 100-feet in height and located on the bank of the Tagus River. It was built in 1519.

We stopped to see the Monument of Discoveries created in 1940 for the Portuguese World Exposition. It was made of wood at that time, but was so popular that in 1960 it was reconstructed to mark 500 years since the death of Henry the Navigator. When it was rebuilt it was constructed with concrete and rose-tinted Leiria stone. The monument includes a portrayal of 32 navigators, warriors, colonizers, missionaries, chroniclers and artists. This monument is not far from the Belem Tower along the Tagus River. 

Jeronimo’s Monastery is a gorgeous Portuguese Gothic style structure built in the early 1500’s. Inside the monastery lies many famous tombs including that of Vasco de Gama, born about 1465 and died in 1524. We stopped to taste the famous local pastry, the Pasteis de Belem. This custard filled puff pastry with the perfect blend of lemon and cinnamon is the most popular sweet in the country. The first recipe is believed to have been created in 1837 by the monks of the Jeronimo’s Monastery. This recipe is kept a secret and therefore only at the Fabrica Pasteis de Belem can you find the original Pasteis de Belem. They sell about 42,000 of the delicious treats each day as the locals and tourists line up to get some of these sweet treats. Other similar pastries around the country are called the Pastel de Nata which are equally delicious. 

The city streets of Lisbon are all built on hills so there are many staircases, elevators and funiculars to take you from one level of the town to another. Many of the sidewalks and pedestrian plazas are paved with two-inch square, black and white stone pavers. These small paver stones are laid in beautiful patterns. The streets are lined with small cafes that spill out onto the sidewalks and plazas so you can sit and enjoy a coffee, a pastry or a meal. Famous designer shops from around the world can be found here as well as an enormous department store, the Corte de Englis where you can purchase anything from a Tesla to your groceries. 

After our tour Kent decided to return to the hotel and rest while Mark headed out into the city streets to explore with Ric and Kevin. We stopped at a local’s lunch spot for a sliced pork loin sandwich on soft white roll with au jus sauce. We later ran into a fellow traveling companion who wanted us to check out a donut shop called Crush Donuts with what they claim are American style donuts. The donuts were raised donuts larger than most you would see in the US and with much more ornamentation. Between the four of us we tried a peanut butter and chocolate donut and a pumpkin donut. The peanut butter was full of flavor and topped with roasted peanuts but the pumpkin donut fell short. While it was dipped in an orange sugar glaze it did not taste like pumpkin at all. 

For dinner Kent and I went to a small Italian restaurant a few doors from the hotel for a salad and Portuguese style pizza. The Portuguese pizza came with chorizo sausage, onions, olives, cheese and a raw egg partially cooked right in the middle. It was all good and filled us up until another buffet breakfast in our hotel. 

This morning, early we disembarked the m/s Douro Serenity for the final time, bound for our final stop in Lisbon. We stopped for lunch in Nazare, a beach town famous for its monstrous waves and surfing culture. Nazare is about 135 miles southwest of Porto and about 80 miles north of Lisbon. The bus ride took us about three hours to drive with a comfort stop along the route. 

Nazare, a town of only about 10,000 inhabitants, was once known as a fishing village but has now become a tourist destination for its Mediterranean climate, quaint seaside town and its surfing. The coastline here has some of the largest waves in the world created by an underwater canyon that increases and converges the incoming ocean swell with the local water current, dramatically enlarging the wave heights. 

The restaurant called San Miguel, where we had lunch, was tucked against the hillside and elevated over the white sand beach. For lunch we had deep fried fish balls and sticks with cheese. Next came a green salad with tomatoes, onions and vinegar and oil dressing. For the entrée they served a fried white fish with rice mixed with peas. Dessert was a vanilla ice cream with a strawberry swirl. 

After lunch we had about an hour to explore the beachside town and its many shops along the waterfront. Most of the shops were filled with Portuguese souvenirs like the cork purses and shoes, clothing, shot glasses, roosters, mugs, painted tiles and the like. Some of the folks in our group seem to do some shopping in most every town whereas we seem to pass by everything without giving it a second look. 

Our next stop along the way was at a charming seaside town called Obidos with only 3,000 residents located about 60 miles north of Lisbon. Here we took a walking tour of this small Medieval town that is encircled by a fortified wall and has become a popular tourist destination. Obidos is also popular for its bookstores. There are about 15 bookstores in this small town. It is also popular for its sour cherry liqueur called Ginginha. They serve the liqueur either in a plastic glass or in a small cup made of dark chocolate. They only charge about one euro for the tastings at most of the shops but we didn’t try it.  Kent did eat a chocolate cup from a fellow traveler who couldn’t eat chocolate.

Obidos is a very charming rural town with one main street of charming shops and cafes lining both sides of the narrow cobblestone street. Many of the shops have merchandise hanging on the walls outside and you find many plants like bougainvillea hanging over the walls to enhance the charm. An artist was painting local scenes on a porch of a building using only coffee instead of paint. The coffee creates many shades of brown tones like a watercolor. One shop is filled with small cans of sardines and fish with your birth date on them. Each can has things that happened during that year as a souvenir. Very colorful and fun but not sure how long you can keep the can of fish. 

We arrived at our hotel, the Corinthia Hotel Lisbon, after five-o’clock in the afternoon. After a short rest and some time to get settled into our new home we gathered at the hotel restaurant for a farewell dinner. We would be in Lisbon for three nights before our departure, but this was when they had the farewell dinner. Dinner included a salad with cheese and pickled pears, chicken breast stuffed with a Portuguese sausage and an apple tart dessert. Everything was very good. 

On this morning we had the opportunity to visit a town about an hour’s drive northeast of Porto by the name of Guimaraes. This historic town center has been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in recognition of its well preserved and authentic example of the evolution of a medieval settlement into a modern town. The population of the city is about 150,000 and was originally settled about in the 9^th century. It is often referred to as the “birthplace of Portugal” because it is believed that Portugal’s first King, Afonso Henriques, was born here.  

We experienced a bit of rain during our visit, otherwise the weather was mostly cloudy and slightly cool. We toured the historic old walled city and its rustic cobblestoned streets with our guide. Most of the buildings are very old and in differing states of disrepair. Some abandoned, some restored and many showing their age. Several large churches are located in the old city with their bell towers, ornate altars, paintings and artifacts. Cafes line the public squares for people to stop and enjoy a bite to eat and a snack or a full meal. A few souvenir shops sell items like colorful tiles and ceramics, fine filigree jewelry and locally made cork and linen products. 

Lunch was back onboard the ship with the afternoon at leisure in Porto. We took this opportunity to have a little nap after the long week of activities onboard and to begin preparing for our trip to Lisbon early the next morning.

Others headed several miles east of Porto’s city center to the area called Gondomar which is well known for its Portuguese filigree jewelry. The exact origin of the jewelry is unknown, but it is believed to date back to around 2000 BC, with Phoenician origins. The technique consists in molding metal into very fine threads, mainly gold alloy, and then twisted two-by-two and then flattened. The threads are as thin as a hair strand and the twisting gives them greater resistance allowing them to be bent and rolled without breaking. Expert artisans work these very fine threads into delicate looking brooches, necklaces, bracelets, earrings and rings. 

Several of us joined the ships concierge, Lidia, on a short walk to a local café to taste a local specialty, the fish cake. The fish cakes are made of cod with a local cheese from the north of Portugal inside and the outside has a slight amount of breading. The fish cakes are served warm with a glass of cold white port wine. The Café where they sell the fish cakes had an organist playing a vintage pipe organ to attract people to the shop. 

We then went to a local bar where folks tried a local beer called dirty beer where they add a little local wine to the beer. They also have what they call the ladies drink, dirty beer with red grenadine syrup which makes the beer red and much sweeter. Not any better than regular beer to me. 

On our final leg of our cruise on the Douro River we sailed into the town of Porto this morning in a downpour of rain with very little visibility. Porto, with a population of about 240,000 people, is the second largest city in Portugal after Lisbon. This does not account for the nearly 2.4 million people living in the metropolitan area. The city is located along the Douro River in northwestern Portugal and its historical core was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996. Across from Porto is the town of Gaia where we docked. Gaia is the area where most of the wineries have cellars.  The higher humidity and lower temperatures are more conducive to wine storage than in the heat of the Douro River Valley.

The history of Porto began around 300BC with the Celtic people being the first known inhabitants. Ruins from this period have been discovered in several areas. During the Roman occupation of the Iberian Peninsula the city developed as an important port. In the 14^th and 15^th centuries, Porto’s shipyards contributed to the development of Portuguese shipbuilding. 

One of Portugal’s internationally famous exports is the port wine named after Porto and produced in the Douro Valley as far back as the 13^th century.  Other top exports include cork and sardines.

On this morning we visited one of the city’s best-known cellars to check out the port wine that the city is known for. We took a short-guided tour of the Taylor wine cellar as well as had a tasting of both a white and a red port wine. The cellar sits high above the river on the Gaia side of the river where all of the wine cellars are located.  The cellar has panoramic views over the city and the river. 

We enjoyed lunch back onboard before a panoramic tour of the city of Porto, including the exterior of the Porto Cathedral, a Roman Catholic Church located in the heart of the old town. 

We stopped in at the 1916 train station in the center of town to view the beautiful murals on the walls. These murals are painted on approximately 20,000 Azulejo tiles. The tiles are painted in blue on white tiles and are quite extraordinary. They reminded us of the ceramic Dutch tiles.  The scenes depict battles, the conquest of Ceuta and many scenes from historical events in Portugal’s history. The city is filled with architecturally interesting buildings one stacked right next to another. The majority of buildings have red clay tile roofs which give the city skyline a very unique look. 

After dinner, a local tuna band performed in the ships lounge. A tuna band is a group of university students in traditional university dress who play traditional instruments and sing serenades. This tradition originated in Portugal in the 13^thcentury as a means for students to earn money and food. This group was ten students who performed local songs for about 45-minutes. It was very interesting. 

In the morning we set sail down river passing the deepest lock in Europe called the Carrapatelo Lock with a height of 115 feet. The voyage along the Douro in this area is more developed than the area further east and the terrain has changed. Where there were grape vines and olive trees there is now much more wild vegetation, steeper hillsides and the river is much narrower in some places. The day is filled with rain showers but the scenery is still beautiful. 

While we were sailing, Patricia, the cruise director presented a brief history of Portugal so that we could better understand the culture of the country. She discussed how the country came to be and how the borders have changed over time. Portugal only has one neighbor, Spain, although they were great explorers around the world and have had many other colonies over the years. They controlled Macau until they gave the land to China and they controlled Timor in Africa which is now an independent nation. They still control Madeira and the Azores in the Atlantic. 

After lunch onboard, we docked at the town of Entre-os-Rios or “in between the rivers” at the confluence of the Tamega and Douro Rivers. The small town was a tragic spot in March of 2001when the Hintze Ribeiro Bridge collapsed after flooding of the river and a strong current. The collapse caused the death of 59 people. Since then a new bridge called the Duarte Pacheco bridge was built reconnecting the town of Torrao to Entre-os-Rios.

We took a 30-minute ride to the Aveleda Winery for a tasting of Vinho Verde. The name Vinho Verde translates into green wine but can also be translated as young wine. These young wines can be released three to six months after the grapes are harvested. The wines are reds, whites and rose and can be consumed shortly after bottling. Vinho Verde also has a popular sparkling version. This area has as many as 20,000 small grape growers. 

The grounds at the Aveleda winery were very beautiful with vast gardens that have been in the family for some 300 years and they have produced wines for 150 years. The family would collect plants from around the world over the years and bring them home to plant in the garden. They even have a couple of California Sequoia trees. We saw a lake and the tea house where the ladies would go to drink wine under the guise of having tea as it was more acceptable at the time. 

After the tour of the gardens and the brandy cellar we were treated to a wine tasting in a very modern tasting room large enough to seat more than 100 people. We tasted two white wines, one a bit more acidic and the other sweeter. They also served up some cheese and crackers. Everywhere we go we are given wine, wine and more wine. It matters not what time of day it is. 

On this night they had the Captain’s farewell party as we will arrive the next day in Porto and people will have time to explore on their own. The dinner was a five-course dinner with an appetizer, soup, hot appetizer, entrée and baked Alaska for dessert. After dinner, a local trio came onboard to perform favorites from the ‘60’s, ‘70’s and ‘80’s. The captain joined the fun and danced with many of the women.