Sunday 29 April 2018

A dreary Paris day

Sunday 29th April

Woke up this morning to rain so had no definite plans on what we would achieve today. Fortunately it didn't rain much and with rain jackets on we were quite dry.

The gardens of the Palais Royal. 
We caught a poster in the metro advertising a show of dutch masters at the Petit Palais. Headed there this morning and was amazed at the architecture of both this and the Grand Palais. Wasn't too keen on some of the paintings but the Van Goghs were pretty spectacular,  and there were quite a few of them.

The Champs Elysee is that way.

Part of the ceiling in the entrance to the Petit Palais
where we saw the exhibition.

 
Inside the Petit Palais.
From there a walk to les Invalides to visit the tomb of Napoleon. His tomb is huge - Rob said it is like those nested babushka dolls.
Entry to les Invalides.
Originally built as a military hospital in the 1600s.

All the attic windows around the
top of the main building had different helmets.

Dome above Napoleons tomb.

This was huge - obviously a very important person
if the size of his tomb is any indication. 

Not a great photo, but some of the armour in the museum.
It is nice to be able to aimlessly wander the different areas of Paris without the pressure to tick off all the big ticket items. We finally headed to the Latin Quarter, near the Sorbonne university for lunch. We ate at the same restaurant as we did 2 years ago and like 2 years ago we found more options just around the corner. There was a street market nearby and we enjoyed looking at the cheeses, meats and nougats. We didn't buy anything but will be on the lookout for little village markets as we tour through the french countryside.

Our first view of the Eiffel Tower this trip.
You can see what sort of day it is.
We still continually get ourselves turned around in Paris. Nowhere is there a nice square grid system - lots of diagonal roads, multi way intersections and triangular blocks. We often stand on the street corner with maps in hand trying to work out where the river is or which way is home.

Paris here we come.

Friday 27th April

Our final day of the cruise and some sad goodbyes all morning. We had to vacate our cabins by 9 but were then able to sit in the lounge till our taxi for the airport. Lunch at the airport and one last portugese tart.

An uneventful trip to Paris, arriving at Orly airport. We decided to take the easy option of a taxi to the hotel and it turned out to be the right move because the french trains are having rolling strikes over the next couple of months and there were no trains.

Saturday 28th April

Our hotel is in a very vibrant part of Paris - the 11th arrondisement - and there are a lot of eating places nearby. We are only 100mt from a metro station so the whole of Paris is at our doorstep. The hotel is pretty basic but the bed is comfortable and the shower is hot with good pressure.

Hey, we got stars on our hotel. Lovely staff here.
 First job was the laundry which for us was no drama - not so for another guy there, problems with his machine which wouldn't wash and then he couldn't open the door. Arrggh!!!

We ventured out after the laundry to do a walking tour of the covered arcades in Paris - think the block arcade in Melbourne, tenfold. Some beautiful architecture dating back to the 1830s, and some beautiful and unique shops.

When we started our walk it was very quiet
- it was a Saturday and both roads and pedestrians
were thin on the ground.
By lunchtime there were a lot more people about.

Beautiful ceilings and mosaic floor tiles.


This building is the Bourse. We hadn't seen the
building before so i had to look it up.
It is the stock exchange.

I'm getting plenty of exercise - seems like every metro line we want to use is the deepest down and we have lots of steps everywhere we go. (The metro is operating as usual - different company to the airport and country trains.) The Paris metro is not friendly to those with limited mobility.  At least the steps are regular (unlike roman steps). With the myriad of lines criss-crossing it makes you wonder what is holding up the buildings of Paris - seems it would be like swiss cheese underneath.

We are both making a real effort with our french though sometimes it seems like we are just using s'il vous plait and merci. We've had short conversations with waiters and a couple of shop keepers where the main topic is where we come from and how long we will be in France. It is all good fun.

Saturday 28 April 2018

Rabelo to Ribeira

Thursday 26th April

Today is the last real day of our criuse. Last night we did a short cruise along the river to the mouth of the river. This was a much more picturesque view of Porto by night than the bus tour.

 
Porto by night from the river.
This morning we went on a typical rabelo boat across to Ribeira which is the old section of Porto on the river. We took a ride on the old tram out to the mouth of the river, and then we turned around and came back. Lucky we were early in the morning because the queues waiting for the tram when we returned were really long. We did a short walk through the narrow, and steep, streets before sitting in a cafe on the river front and enjoying an espresso coffee and a portugese tart.

We took a ride on the tram along the river
- was interesting to see the houses and all the different tiles.

Mmm - portugese tarts.
In the afternoon we did a bus tour to the city of Guimaraes which is said to be the birth place of the first king of Portugal. We visited the palace and then did a walk through the streets of the old town following some of the signs for the pilgrimage walk, the Camino de Santiago.

There is a story about these tapestries. There are four
of them and they are huge.
Apparently they disappeared at some stage and were
later found to be in Spain.
Spain would not return them to the Portuguese
but did give them copies.
Cathedral in Guimaraes.


Street scene in Guimaraes.
It was our last dinner on board tonight followed by a performance by a Portugese folk dance group.

Napkin folding - we had some lovely designs.

Last night dessert - bomb alaska.


Arrgh! Bats, bats, bats.

Wednesday 25th April

I'm having trouble remembering what day of the week it is but awoke this morning to the realisation that it is Anzac day at home. Today is red carnation day, or freedom day, in Portugal celebrating the peaceful coup in 1974 which saw the end of dictatorship. It is a public holiday and kids are home from school.

Today we visited the university town of Coimbra which was a 1 ½ hr bus ride. The town is sometimes referred to as the city of bats. ??? You ask??? The students all wear a uniform – black suits (skirts for the girls), white shirts, black ties and over all of this they wear a black cape. There are apparently other universities in Portugal and other European countries where this is de rigeur also. I can't imagine Melbourne university students doing this. They also carry a black satchel which is supposed to hold all their personal stuff including books. Today the students were out celebrating their graduation.

Bats - students carry a satchel with a
coloured ribbon on it which indicates
their area of study.

And more bats.


The students were out celebrating and around
the city there were different performances taking place.

We visited the main buildings of the university, which started life as a palace, and of course visited the main cathedral in the city.

The main university square. When we entered here we all reached
for sunglassses as all the buildings were white limestone
and with the sun shining the glare was painful.
Actually I noticed that a lot of the students wore dark glasses
- they obviously learned this early.

Beautiful ceiling frescoes in the university chapel.
The best part of our day out was lunch. Started out a bit ho hum – an Irish pub, squeezed into an old Portuguese tram suspended on the third level. We were grouped with the Norwegian group who spoke some English. The food was not up to the standard of the boat but was quite ok, but after a few bottles of red the lunch turned into great fun with us having a singalong with the Norwegians. This seemed to break the ice for the rest of the trip and we started to mix a bit more.
The singing tram.
You've all been waiting haven't you?
Dogs of the day.

Tonight was the gala dress up dinner. I thought it would be really dressy but surprisingly not a lot of people went all out – I thought the French would make more of an effort. More excellent food – I'm glad the cruise is not longer or I'd come home with a new french wardrobe and I'd be dieting forever.

Porto and port....

We were invited to a tour of the bridge. Le capitaine had a very cute smile.
Yesterday (Tuesday) was a fairly relaxed day cruising on the river and through another lock, followed by a tour of Porto where we visited a church which was almost totally covered in gold leaf inside. Apparently over 200kg of gold was used. Pretty OTT for my liking - aside from the gold leaf the carving was extremely ornate. 


Looking across the river from Porto to the twin city of Gaia
- the quai where some of the  cruise ships depart.

Beautiful!
We also visited the stock exchange. Why the stock exchange you ask – apparently there was a time that Porto was the capital, then it moved to Lisbon, the stock exchange was supposed to come back to Porto so the stock exchange was built, but it has never been used as such. Some beautiful marquetry floors and one room with beautiful tile work and frescoes. 


This room in the stock exchange palace was amazing
- there was a collective gasp when they opened the door.

Another winery tour and tasting on our way back to the boat. Very civilized here - sitting at tables rather than standing at the bar. I'm not too keen on the port wines, I could only drink a small amount, but Rob likes them. Tempting to buy a bottle but would be a pain to pack and carry onwards to Paris.


Some of the lights of Porto. Not really a lot to look at.
We also did a tour of Porto by night visiting the railway station which we'd already seen – we could have passed on this tour.

Tuesday 24 April 2018

Is the sun over the yardarm?

So the river cruise is not quite as planned but we are still having a great time. The food on board is amazing, though I wasn't too keen on the portugese cod dish last night but they made up for it with the portugese egg custard tart.  The staff are fantastic – we have a couple of favourites.
This was the huge dish of paella we had 2 nights ago. Our favourite waitress Lidia.
Yesterday was a bus trip in the morning to a village high up in the hills – again, glad Fangio was a passenger. Followed by a visit to a port winery and tasting on the way back to the ship – the sun was over the yardarm in Australia. The ports were really smooth. The tour of the winery was very informative and he explained why they do only red ports here – it is the altitude and  cooler climate in the hills.

The oldest section of the village in the hills - can't remember it's name but dates back to 1400s.

Not quite a dog - but we watched this farmer and his horse working the vineyards.

Back to the boat where we finally did  bit of cruising, passing through one of the biggest locks in Europe. The sun also came out yesterday and it was great to be able to sit on the sun deck as we sailed along.
Our first lock - one of the biggest in Europe at 32m.


Last night was the crew spectacular – extremely funny and very enjoyable.

Monday 23 April 2018

Vines as far as the eye can see.

It's been an interesting couple of days, sadly the  cruising part is not going according to plan. Apparently they have had huge amounts of rain during March and the river is in flood and flowing too fast to safely navigate upstream towards Spain. This means we have been moving back and forth along a section of the river in the hope that the situation would improve. At lunchtime today they decided that upriver was not going to happen and they have modified the program accordingly. We are still able to do the shore excursions apart from the tour to Salamanca.

This church in Lamego was at the top of a hill - 836 steps. Thankfully the bus could drive right to the top. 

Day 3

This morning we went to the town of Vila Real which was a drive through some amazing vineyards – every inch of space on every hill was terraced for vines (and it was very hilly, the road was very twisty and I was glad to be on a bus rather than sitting beside Fangio aka Rob). Vila Real was very quiet – Sunday so nothing was open). We had coffee and a local pastry and wandered the old  village.

A beautiful example of the terraced vineyards.


The Mateus Palace. They built the pond to get the reflection so the palace looked bigger.

Looking down on the Douro River.
From there we went to Mateus Palace, now the summer residence of the Mateus family.  When I think of Mateus it is Mateus Rose but the family has nothing to do with the wine other than their palace appears on the label.

This afternoon has been a quiet time on board. We are finding out about cruise food – there is so much of it and it’s all been excellent. It's a worry when you arrive in the restaurant for lunch and there is so much cutlery on the table.

I'm still having issues with this new technology. It's certainly not as easy as my old computer. Wish I had that with me.

Tonight is spanish themed with sangria, paella and flamenco music and dancing.


Saturday 21 April 2018

River photos

Been trying to sort out what is going on with our photo transfer. Hopefully this will work and I can post a few photos.



One of the other boats on the river.

The town of Pinhao where we are moored for the night.

Just some of the beautiful terraced vineyards.

Home for the week - and very comfortable it is. I'm sure the boat is sitting much lower in the water already after only one day if being well fed.

The Douro river. Sadly its still flooded so we're doing limited cruising.