Day 36 - Up the river

Today we drove inland to Pinhao in the port wine grape growing region of Portugal, following the Douro River through terraced vineyards. It was a beautiful day and it got steadily warmer as we headed away from the coast.

After a short stop for a coffee in Peso de Regua where there were larger cruise boats waiting to pick up passengers for their Douro cruises, we made it to Pinhao. We were a little lost when we arrived as we couldn't see any obvious signs pointing to where we could get a boat trip, but after asking around we were pointed in the right direction.

We booked one of the short 45 minute cruises for 2:30pm, so had time to enjoy a nice lunch overlooking the river. The boat trip was quite pleasant, it was a short trip up the river past more vineyards.

After the boat ride we drove to Aveiro on the coast south of Lisbon, where we checked in to a great, modern apartment that overlooked one of the canals that ran through town. A quick wander through the streets was followed by dinner, where the waiter couldn't quite understand why we didn't want him to turn the soccer on while we were having our dinner!