Where Did November Go?

We made another crossing and journeyed into Seville, Spain from Lisbon to try and chase the sun. It is December, winter, and rainy. We haven’t been entirely successful. While we were sitting in the hotel in Seville waiting for the latest thunderstorm to pass so we could venture out, it gave us some time to reflect. Where the hell did November go? Lots of travel, sites, and few blog posts. Well, here’s what happened.

Milan

Yes, we alluded to the fact that we toured Italy and visited more cultural sites than we could possible count on ten fingers and toes. We even got around to sharing some of our tour of the Dolomites toward the end of our Italian tour. Following Italy, we knew we wanted to spend a significant amount of time in Portugal. We needed to find the best and quickest route to Lisbon. We thought it was an EasyJet flight from Milan to Lisbon, so we made our way to Milan via train from Bolzano.

We spent a couple nights in Milan and visited the spectacular Duomo there, probably the most noteworthy site in the city unless you’re a high-end fashion shopper. You can clearly see from the photos, that we are not those people. One of the coolest aspects of visiting the Duomo in Milan is that you actually get to walk on the roof!

Lisbon

While checking our bags in the Milan airport, the automatic baggage system shut down and rebooted. We didn’t think anything of it. However, when we got to Lisbon to claim our luggage, there was only one bag on the carousel. We filed a lost bag claim and assumed it would follow us the next day as we were only in Lisbon two days before moving on to an AirBnB in Porto. We never got a call at the hotel and our bag didn’t show up. We made the best of our time in Lisbon and enjoyed a walk to the river.

Porto

We moved on to Porto bummed that we had essentially lost half of everything we had, including all our shoes except for the ones we were wearing. We were marginally grateful for the timing as we had two stationary weeks in Porto to deal with the baggage search and claim and, god forbid, shop for anything extra we needed. We tried really hard to not let it ruin our time in Porto. It is a lovely city and was nice and sunny for at least half of our visit. Unfortunately, it is winter and it did rain quite a bit. Luckily, our rain coats were not in the bag we lost.

We filled our time taking a Douro River tour. We went to the beach. We visited some museums. We also enjoyed a food tour of Porto. If you go, look up Joanna of Taste Porto. It was a great time and introduced us to many of the food traditions of Porto. We also spent some time across the river in Gaia, where the port lodges are located. For those who don’t know, port was shipped down the Douro River from the interior where the grapes were grown and processed to Gaia, where it was stored, aged, and bottled for sale. The waterfront has many replica Rabelos, the boats used to transport the wine down river.

Of course, we toured a port wine lodge and attended a tasting. The Ferriera Caves were vast and fun to tour and the story of Donna Ferriera is a unique one. She was a woman running a business in a male dominated world who held her own. Of all the lodges, this one is definitely worth a visit.

Our two weeks in Porto passed all too quickly. It was great to have a home base where we could cook dinner and actually do our own laundry. We had a couch and a TV and spent some time enjoying simple comforts of home we had forgotten. The rain held off until our second week, but came in strong. In hopes we could leave some of the rain behind, we reserved a car and planned a trip up the Douro River.

Douro

Our first stop on our Douro tour was the charming town of Amarante. Amarante is a popular weekend escape along the Douro. We ate lunch at a friendly neighborhood taberna, toured as much of the town as we could, and moved on the next day.

The town of Amarante is divided by the Tâmega river, a tributary of the Douro. A historic stone bridge connects the two sides. Amazingly, even though it seems like it is only big enough for pedestrians, they allowed vehicle traffic one way.

Yes, it rained on us the whole time. Also, it was off season, restaurants were closed, and we were the only guests in the hotel. They set up the entire buffet breakfast just for us. Not the first time we’ve been the only guests somewhere because of when we chose to travel. It rained so much that the parking lot near the hotel was in danger of flooding, so we had to park a little farther away at the market.

We were there to see the Fall color, and the region didn’t disappoint. We looked past the rain and captured some of the vineyards in full show.

We moved on through the town of Regua to stop at the Douro Museum for a bit of history of the region and the wine making. Again, it was pouring rain, so spending time in a museum was about all we could manage. The museum had some interesting historic footage of workers loading rabelo boats and hauling wine down the rapids to Porto. Amazing that they made the journey, from what we saw.

Our final destination for the Douro tour was the town of Pinhão, in the heart of the grape growing region. We stayed at Quita de la Rosa, a huge wine producing estate that also has a couple hotels and a restaurant. We enjoyed a tour of the facilities, wine tasting, and a couple of fine dinners.

The weather gave us a break! We had a sunny day in Pinhão, and walked into town to catch a river boat. Here are a couple of pictures of the grape vine and olive tree covered hillsides. The terracing is amazing. They use every inch they can, and all the harvesting is done by hand. Can’t get machines on these narrow rows on the terraced hillsides.

Pinhão is about an hour and a half drive from Porto, so it is also a popular weekend getaway destination and also the destination of day trip tour busses. It really is a tiny little town, and we were glad to be there off season.

We had one final destination on our Douro tour. Turns out there are hundreds of prehistoric rock engravings in the river valley near the town of Vila Nova de Foz Côa. Their discovery even shut down the construction of a hydroelectric dam that would have flooded the entire river valley and obscured or destroyed the prehistoric artwork forever. The local museum tells the story through the news broadcasts of the time. It is a rare example of student protests and community activism stopping the plans of government and big energy companies.

Although hard to see in the rain (we got soaked to the bone!), the carvings really are amazing. During the day, we visited two different sites on tours and also the museum before driving all the way back to Porto to turn in the rental car and catch a train to Lisbon. It was an epic day in the pouring ass rain, but well worth it.

Andrea managed to capture some more of the spectacular fall color on our drive back to Porto before we caught the train to Lisbon and a flight to Madeira. The weather was challenging, but the scenery was beautiful.

Madeira

We made the journey back to Lisbon in a single day because we had had enough of the rain. We needed some sunshine, and the only place we thought we might get it was on the island of Madeira off the coast of Morocco. It is a lovely little volcanic Portuguese island. We spent four days in the main city Funchal and then rented a car to tour the northern coast and stay at Quinta do Furão as a base of operations. It was a great place explore the region.

We have to say that Madeira was absolutely beautiful. The countryside was lush and the city itself was full of gardens. The entire population lives on vertical hills covered with tropical vegetation.

The highlights of Funchal were the gardens. There was an excellent botanical garden on the island. We took a taxi to the gardens and then caught a cable car up the hill to the village of Monte where we had lunch and then took another cable car down the mountain back into Funchal.

The next day, we visited the Palace Gardens in the hills above Funchal. We took way too many pictures to share of the two gardens, so for now, here’s a selfie of us at the Palace Gardens.

Of course, we had to return to Monte for a second day to get a chance to ride the wicker toboggans down the hill. This is a uniquely Madeiran experience. History has it that one of the merchants got tired of huffing his products down the hill into Funchal, so he built a sled. Today, it is one of the most popular tourist activities. We just had to try it.

Of course, we also visited Blandy’s wine lodge to sample the Madeira wine. Turns out it isn’t named after the island but because it tastes like wood. Look it up.

With our rental car, we drove up the eastern coast and stopped in the town of Porto da Cruz for lunch on our way to Quinta do Furão near the town of Santana.

The town of Santana is know for the traditional A-frame houses that are native to the island. A few still remain around the region as tourist attractions. This one houses a florist.

Our base near Santana was Quinta do Furão, which was as much German as it was Portuguese. It is a resort hotel perched on the edge of a sea cliff with amazing views.

Most people come to the Santana region to hike. The area is covered with levadas, concrete irrigation ditches built to irrigate the grapes and provide water for other agriculture across the region. There are a multitude of different levada hikes. We hiked along Levada del Rey, king of the levadas.

Our time in Madeira was too short, but we did find some warm weather and sunshine. However, the rain did find us on the last couple of days as we explored the interior mountains. The rain didn’t prevent us from enjoying the amazing scenery of the highest mountain regions of Madeira.

Lisbon

So, we came full circle from entry into Portugal in early November to a return to Lisbon in early December. The month was gone along with our lost luggage. Andrea made one last desperate attempt before we gave up and emailed the luggage handling office in Lisbon to see if they found our bag. It was gone for a month and nobody had looked until she prodded. Upon our return to Lisbon, we were actually reunited with all of our belongings!!! It was a happy ending to a great month and great tour of Portugal.

We finally found a hotel and neighborhood we like in Lisbon, and celebrated the return of our lost luggage by watching the World Cup and listening to live music in an outdoor cafe in the courtyard outside our hotel. It was a great happy ending.

So, that’s where November went. See you in December. Oh, wait, it is already here! Best to all.