Portugal: Cruising the Douro River

My third Road Scholar trip of the year (and probably the last I will take for some time) brought me to northern Portugal. Originally I had signed up for a cruise around Cuba in March 2018, but when that program was cancelled, the Portugal excursion appeared to be a reasonable substitute. The trip was bought and paid for long before I decided to sell the house and move to Academy Village. In retrospect, it came at the wrong time, because Ron still wasn't used to his new surroundings. The day before I returned, he took the dog for a walk and got completely lost; he was quite dehydrated by the time neighbors brought him home. When the caretaker learned of this, she decided she ought to stay with him all the time until I got back. That was probably a wise move, but to receive authorization she first called Karen and then, when Karen demurred, contacted  Daniel. Daniel was understandably very upset, as something bad seems to happen every time I'm away. For any forthcoming travel I will have to arrange for housing Ron temporarily at Academy Villas, the community assisted-living facility, and find a pet sitter for the dog and cat. Given the dissatisfaction I felt with some aspects of this Road Scholar program, it hardly seems worth it.

There were pleasant things about the Portugal excursion, to be sure. The best was finding a group of three congenial women, Linnaea, Ella, and Vasiliki, who were enthusiastic about the food and wine available on the cruise--especially the wine. Since the Douro region is the home of port, terraced vineyards all along the river bore familiar names (Sandeman, Taylor). White port was the drink of choice for a before-dinner aperitif and tawny port for the after-dinner entertainment. Surprisingly, the program included only one scheduled wine tasting, at the Quinta do Tedo winery, but during a morning visit to the Mateus estate, included in the program because of its chateau and formal garden, some of the Road Scholar contingent happened upon its tasting room, which was already open for business. We commandeered seats and, for one and one-half euros, enjoyed generous pours of excellent table wines. This was the better tasting experience of the two, as it was unstructured and serendipitous. As for the chateau with its indifferent French and Italian oils and furniture, and the garden, which was OK only if one admires eighteenth-century horticulture, it could be easily skipped.

I should add, however, that the river cruise included wine at lunch and dinner, and one of the wines they regularly poured was Mateus Rosé. If anyone had told me I would go back to drinking Mateus after all these years, I would have been shocked. But their rosé has improved since the 1960s--keeping pace with the palate of consumers, it's now much dryer--and I found myself, along with my three companions, ordering it instead of a red on several occasions. Since the sugar content is lower, it didn't cause the headaches one used to get from consuming too much of it, and in fact the alcohol content is lower as well, just 11%. In addition to its pleasant past associations, then, the wine was something that could be indulged in without serious consequences.

So the cuisine and the conversation that went with it were reasonably good, but the sites, especially those around Lisbon, weren't always the ones I would have chosen to visit. The university library and the law faculty building at Coímbra had historic importance, to be sure, but not enough to justify trudging through the rain, climbing interminable stairs, and trying not to slip on damp cobblestones. At Queluz we spent almost two hours at an eighteenth-century summer palace. Architecture of that period leaves me cold, as does Baroque painting; there was far too much of both on the program. Then there was the Coach Museum, remarkable only for its tediousness, example after example of royal pomp and extravagance. Why the guides thought it worth taking groups to defies all explanation. Finally, at the end of the program, we went to the Gulbenkian Museum, which I had already done during the 2008 FIEC meeting. The collection, though extensive, isn't particularly good--among the Old Masters, only one Rubens stood out, and some of the Egyptian materials had a whiff of fakery about them.

Enough of griping. Other places were well worth the visit. One memorable occasion was a walk in Porto along the banks of the Douro, passing under three impressive bridges, including one designed by Gustav Eiffel. Linnaea, Vasiliki, and I parted from the group to do our own exploring and happened upon an arresting piece of street art--a rabbit composed of recycled junk.

The highlight of the entire program was the art-nouveau Casa Lis in Salamanca. Our stop there was all too brief, and after lunch (which gave me the occasion to use my Spanish), Linnaea and I took advantage of free time to go back and do the rooms in depth.

Summing up: the scenery was impressive and the cruise itself relaxing, and I could sincerely feel that I had earned a few days' rest after all the stress of moving. Nevertheless I wonder whether I would want to fill up my future life with successive trips, as some of the single women on board were doing. Ella was even making arrangements during the cruise for her next outing--an individually guided tour through the Brazilian rain forest, jaguar sightings guaranteed, costing over eleven thousand dollars. As I remarked to Linnaea, for $20 I can go to the Desert Museum in Tucson and see Mexican jaguars in their natural habitat, and I doubt Brazilian jaguars are larger or fiercer enough to justify the extra expense. For some of the affluent widows I've met, travel seems to provide the sole source of excitement in an otherwise drab existence. I hope that I can connect with other residents at Academy Village in ways that will resemble the camaraderie of shipboard friendships but prove more durable, and simultaneously find new sources of interest to take the place of any travel I have to forego.