08/31/19 - Saturday, Nice

The setup for the free breakfast at the hotel was a bit unusual. The hotel was somehow connected to the adjacent restaurant, which you accessed by going outside and into another entrance (as opposed to entering the restaurant via the hotel which happened to also have an entrance for the general public). It was an, um, interesting place. It was made to look even older than the building was, with roughened walls painted an ochre shade with some slats showing – I guess a shabby chic look? Other parts had a kind of kitschy wallpaper pattern that would’ve been popular in, say, the 40s or 50s. There were deer antlers on one wall, interesting artwork throughout, and a creepy male mannequin wearing a leopard print Speedo and with a gold chain around the waist from which hung gold letters spelling ROCKSTAR (in case you thought anyone else would be wearing such a thing).

Ye Olde Pen Shoppe

There were no servers in the restaurant when we entered. There was, however, a guy in the kitchen in the back who was clearly trying to prep for the regular restaurant hours (the restaurant was clearly not open to the public for breakfast or even coffee at this time). Inevitably, when hotel guests had questions, they sought that poor guy out who got more frustrated with each request as this was clearly not his job. Turns out it was the job of the hotel clerk who finally wandered in. She added a few more croissants to the basket (apparently, three was the perfect amount to set out at any given point in time). My wife asked if there were eggs as there was an electric egg boiling machine and, probably 15 minutes, she finally brought the eggs out. I don’t know if these machines are different in France, but this one took well over 15 minutes, though apparently the eggs were good. The coffee was less good – I think the packets of instant Nescafe up in the room were far better. But hey, a free breakfast is a free breakfast and the croissant and yogurt were at least enough to get me on my way.

Cheese so special it is roped off -- VIP cheese

 We did a bit of shopping that morning. No, not fancy things that one might associate with the high fashion of Paris or something. No, we hit places such as Zara and H&M so that we had a few more cheap t-shirts and things to wear in the hot weather. What’s interesting to me is that the stores have different merchandise in Europe than in the US so we ended up with some things that may be a bit unique. My favorite find was a bizarre white t-shirt with what looked like a frame around some artwork of a woman with a crazy red hairstyle which was then accented with the a few sequins of the same color.  Totally NOT my style, but hey, EUR 5!

I can't unsee this, er, "art"

Some of the interesting art

We went to the Musee d’Arts Modernes et d’Art Contemporain (MAMAC) which has some, er, interesting exhibits and also happened to be very close to the hotel. We spent the rest of the day just wandering around and enjoying the city and had a lovely dinner at another restaurant recommended by a friend – Citrus.

8/30/19 Friday, Arrival and Nice

We departed Newark late on Friday night on La Compagnie, which promotes itself as a boutique airline. They fly direct between Newark and Paris and, during the summer months, also from Newark to Nice. While it’s nice not to have to connect, what’s even better is that part of them being a boutique airline is that they only offer business class, so there are only about 70 passengers on the entire plane. That makes boarding easier, overhead storage space much more available and, obviously, there is a better class of service and sleeping in the skies in business class.

The planes are a bit old and the seats are not true lay-flat seats but the wedgie ones that are flat but angled to the ground — like Lufthansa’s old business class, if you’re familiar. But I will take that any day compared to flying in Economy, especially on the overnight flight.  The flight didn’t leave until 11:30, which is already way after my bedtime and landed at around 2 PM local time in Nice, which was helpful in terms of arriving at the hotel and a room actually being ready versus having to leave your bags at the hotel and wandering around the city like a sleep-deprived zombie with bed head.

The hotels available with only a week’s notice on the last big weekend of summer were, well, limited. At least if you wanted to stay on any sort of budget. My goal with the 20 countries/region thing is to do so in as immersive a way as possible, so trying not to default to a western (okay, American) bubble and just choose a Starwood (it’s still hard for me to say Marriott) property where everything will be predictable. No, the goal is a bit of unpredictability and a reasonable price.  This generally equates to three or maybe four star places that are local where I am more likely to either need or be able to practice my local language skills and where I could have more genuine interactions with real people.

I booked Le Geneve Hotel via Booking.com (since our stay just over two weeks ago, it has changed its name to Hotel Le G, oddly enough). It had user ratings of 8.7 out of 10, was said to be convenient to the Old Town of Nice and was only EUR 155 including breakfast.  I was a bit surprised that when I booked, Booking.com sent a follow-up saying that since I was spending over EUR 100/night, they’d throw in a taxi to the hotel from the airport.  Wait, what? Don’t think Starwood has ever offered me that. Yep. I gave them my details and sure enough, there was a driver with a sign and my name. He led us out to a nice, new black van and proceeded for the entire trip to essentially not hear us asking for him to turn up the air, so we arrived a bit more hot, sweaty and disheveled-feeling than typical overnight flight dishevelment. It was also a bit confusing to know how/whether to tip him since we had no idea how much such a taxi ride would have been, how he was being compensated etc. We gave him EUR 5, which was no doubt more than enough given how little tipping is used in Europe (at least not at the 20% type range as in the US) which was, we assume, still much less expensive than a taxi from the airport to the hotel.

When we walked into the hotel, which was just off of Place Garibaldi (a nice square with fountains, of course), what first hit me was how stinkin’ hot it was in the small reception area. The clerk was seated behind a small counter and had a couple of fans blowing on her and still looked miserable. It was around 90 F outside that day. Usually the lobby of a hotel is its best foot forward to make a positive first impression, so the lack of a seating area and A/C did not bode well for our stay. As we trudged up the stairs (don’t think I ever saw an elevator, though fortunately we were only one floor up), I was thinking of what my wife was going to say about my hotel selection. And I couldn’t imagine how I could’ve missed the A/C part as that was always one of my criteria.

As the clerk opened the door for us, I was relieved to discover that indeed, I had not overlooked the A/C part as the in-room unit was humming along and the room was noticeably cooler than the hallway or lobby.  Whew! It was small, but had a mini-fridge, a tea kettle for instant coffee and tea and even a small safe. It’d be just fine.

After taking 30 minutes to cool off, change our clothes and catch-up on what we’d missed during the flight (the WiFi was fast and free), we headed out to explore a bit. Google Maps on my phone was a bit confusing. It was clear we were indeed near the Old Town, but we ended up wandering down Promenade du Paillon through a park with some interesting sculptures and playground equipment. The delightful surprise was, towards the end, there was a large stone tiled area with jet fountains that would periodically turn on. On a day as hot as that one, children were laying around on the wet stone and, when the jets would turn on, would just squeal in delight and glee and commence running around and through the jets and having a wonderful time. Just pure joy.

The Old Town was lovely and my first real introduction to the narrow streets of many Provencal towns. Shops selling lavender, Provencal fabrics and souvenirs were interspersed with butcher shops, restaurants and sidewalk cafes. Tourists abounded, yet it retained a sense of calm, though admittedly it was a Friday rather than the weekend. We had dinner at Bar du Coin, which a friend had said had the best pizza in the world, so we had to check it out. It was good, but I’ll take a Chicago deep dish any time to that. Nevertheless, all the walking around, jetlag and lots of carbs put me into a quick sleep that night.

Introduction to the Provence Trip (and related entries)

Like most of the trips I have taken abroad, I approached a vacation in Provence with misconceptions and ignorance. But that, of course, is precisely why I want to travel — to literally and figuratively expand my horizons and see a perspective that is different than what I have had before and at least start to remedy that ignorance.

I have been to France before, but only Paris and a brief road trip between Paris and Geneva, Switzerland through the Bordeaux wine-growing region. But I am married to someone who lived in Geneva and thought nothing of popping down to Provence for a long weekend and couldn’t fathom that I had never been before. And so it wound up on my list of the 20 countries or regions that I want to visit before I turn 60 (it is number four, following Romania, Lithuania and Portugal).

As with those other trips, I started by trying to learn the language to the extent reasonably possible and to read up on the country. I had originally thought that we would be visiting in May, so I began with Level 1 of Pimsleur’s French in December so that I would peak at the right time as each of the five levels involves 30 lessons that are designed to be completed on a consecutive, daily basis. I had taken two years of French in college so thought it would all come back to me. What came back instead is a realization that I probably hadn’t learned as much in the first place as I thought I had. But at least I had some basic starting point.

I made good progress in the courses and finished as scheduled in April, but in the interim was told by someone who used to live in Geneva and would be accompanying me on this trip (which is to say, my wife) that May was absolutely NOT the right time to go to Provence. Oh. But by that time I was already in level 3. So I finished it and peaked early, thinking this extra time would allow me to keep improving my skills and do more reading. Yeah, that didn’t really happen, because then a German colleague joined us at our office and I decided I would focus on German on a daily basis and just add in a couple days a week such as the weekend where I would work on my French. Yeah, no….

I also didn’t do nearly as much reading on the culture and history of the country as I had done for the other countries, which is crazy since there is sooooo much more written on the culture and history of France than any of those other three countries.  I did, however, read several books about the experiences of various individuals who lived in Provence, bought a vacation home there, had a job there etc. They were somewhat helpful, but I did myself a disservice by not being as focused as I should have been. During the trip, I also finished a book about some of the folk stories and lore of the country that brought some of the regions alive — but after I had been to most of them. Doh!

All that to say, I started out even more ignorant than I had for the other three countries, though at least I had a French speaker traveling with me who had been there many times before. Which was both helpful and frustrating at times — for both of us, no doubt.

The original idea was that my wife was was going to create an itinerary for the trip, since she’d been there before, knew where to stay and what to see and the like. As the time grew closer, though, I became less confident that such an itinerary was being formed. So I went online and started ordering travel guides and a map. When they arrived, I marked places that seemed interesting and I noticed she was poring over the books as well. I wasn’t sure if that was a reflection of her trying to find ideas, trying to incorporate my interests into her master plan or something else. She had been with me on the trip to Portugal and had seen how I had organized it and so I assumed that she would be doing something similar and I should just back off and let her do so and not interfere because, obviously, I had never been to Provence before so how would I know how it was done? And she clearly had done this many times by all the stories she told of dining under the stars at a small hotel where they just brought out local wine and you laughed and drank and had wonderful food and magical experiences. Give me some of that, please!

As it turned out, there wasn’t a master plan or any type of itinerary (most assuredly not of the day-by-day variety captured in Word as is my wont). We didn’t even have hotels booked for each night, which is something I didn’t realize until we were already there. I suppose it should have been a clue about a week before we left when she asked if I would handle finding a hotel in Nice for the first two nights. Wait, in a week? In August? Over a US holiday weekend? The last weekend before French children return to school? Yep.

At the same time, I am (I think) smart enough to realize that my way isn’t always the best way and, yes, I’m a bit uptight, so maybe a more flexible approach would be a good thing. So we sallied forth.

What became clear rather quickly in reading those books, and later on the ground, is that I didn’t really understand where Provence was located. When I thought of Provence, I thought of lavender fields because of all the photos I had seen showing that and, well, the advertising of L’Occitane en Provence, one of my preferred makers of hand creams and other things. I somehow didn’t realize that it also included the French Riviera.

There are six different areas called departments in Provence:  Alpes-Maritimes, Var, Bouches-du-Rhone, Vaucluse, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence and Hautes-Alpes. The travel guide that was our primary reference didn’t include Hautes-Alpes, so it is perhaps no surprise that we didn’t make it up there, though we did hit the other five.

One of the other references I had purchased was an old school paper map of the area, which turned out to be so large that one needed an entire table on which to spread it to see anything, so not great for planning on-the-fly. Our rental car fortunately had GPS (which turned out to be very helpful since mobile reception was spotty along the way, thus frustrating the use of Google Maps or Waze), but GPS only works as well as the destinations you feed it and cannot overcome one’s failure to plan. Perhaps as a result of that, the route we actually took and where we stayed were not as, um, efficient as we might otherwise have chosen. Good thing we had unlimited kilometers on the rental!

At some point in time I will figure out how to create a map of the journey and will post it here. You will then see the somewhat circuitous route we took, which tracks along with not having a master plan or a good, small map.

While we did visit five of the six departments, we spent more time in some areas than others, which is my cue to say that now I know where to focus for the next visit. Except that there are 16 other countries/regions that need to be knocked off in 12 years, which doesn’t leave a lot of time/room for repeats and, essentially, do-overs.

Winding up/down in Sintra

The last stop on our trip (other than the final night in Lisbon, where there wasn't anything post-worthy) was to Sintra, which is just outside Lisbon. It is a quaint and rather touristy place, but for good reason -- there are several palaces and castles and related grounds in the area, as well as being located in Parque Natural de Sintra-Cascais which provides some additional recreational activities.

We took the train from Braga to Sintra via Lisbon's Oriente station, which took about four hours in total, so we arrived in Sintra mid-afternoon on Friday.  Our hotel was only 650 meters from the train station, but somehow Google Maps thought it would be fun to take a short cut. I've noticed Google Maps doesn't seem to take into account hills when plotting out pedestrian routes and this was no exception. It took us down some narrow streets, at the bottom of which it then directed us to climb some stairs. And climb. And climb. All while carrying our luggage of course.

We stayed at the Sintra Boutique Hotel which was fine but nothing spectacular, though our room did have a view of the Palacio Nacional de Sintra, which was pretty much right across the street. The also brought a lot of people into the area, but the room was surprisingly quiet when the windows were closed. It also had the bonus (as compared to the wine barrels and the pousada) of having a coffee/espresso machine in the room, which was immediately put to use by Kimberley. The helpful woman at the front desk of the hotel recommended that, given that we were starting a weekend when the town is overrun with tourists, that we knock off the National Palace and another place I had on my list -- Quinta da Regaleira -- that afternoon and then hit Palacio Nacional da Pena first thing in the morning as the lines can get quite lengthy.

As was the case with much of the trip, with gorgeous weather outside and since we have already between the two of us seen many castles and palaces, we didn't elect to wait in line to tour the National Palace. Instead, we just took a few pics from the outside and headed on. What's most notable about the National Palace are the two white peaks rising out of the building side-by-side, which are actually twin chimneys in the kitchen.

It will surprise no one who has read the blogs so far (or who has toured Portugal) that the road leading to the Quinta da Regaleira was steep and windy. And once inside, there were even more hills and stairs. The whole thing seemed to be a series of terraced gardens and overlooks with castle-like points interspersed throughout, each of which had a circular staircase inside taking you up to the next level of the terraces.

 

There were also small ponds/lakes, caves and grottos. Kind of fascinating. And a good leg workout. One of the articles on Sintra or maybe it was a guide book noted that it was like a fairyland or a place where you would expect a hobbit to appear at any time and I couldn't agree more.

 


The next morning we took the advice to arrive at the Pena Palace early to be there when the doors opened at 9:30. There was a bus that left pretty much in front of our hotel at 9:15 but the helpful receptionist at the hotel had also noted that you could taken an Uber (which she charmingly pronounced YOU-bur), so we tried that out. We watched the driver's approach to us on the app with a bit of apprehension as he seemed to be taking a very circuitous route to get to the hotel. We learned later that there are a bunch of one-way streets in the area. So after he picked us up, we ended up doubling back and coming nearly to the hotel again as we ascended. And ascended. And ascended. Very narrow, winding roads and I am glad we didn't think this would have made a good hike! We arrived at the entrance around 9:15 and the line was already really backed up. Kimberley waited in entry line while I went up to get in a different line for tickets. There was a regular ticket booth, but also a series of three kiosks you could use. Except two of the three kiosks were non-functional. The line was really slow and Kimberley was nearly to the gate when I finally got my shot at the kiosk only to discover (after a failed attempt) that it would only take debit cards or a credit card with a PIN.  Doh! Fortunately I actually did have my debit card with me and it worked like a charm.

Once inside, there was a long -- you guessed it -- steep road up to the palace. You could pay EUR 3 per person for a bus transfer to the top, but what's the fun in that (especially if you're a tight-fisted accountant and you're already nearly used to all the hill climbing)? So up we went. And I think walking up made for a better experience as you caught glimpses of the palace through the trees in certain spots.

It really is quite a stunner, particularly with the bold colors and all of the interesting details. They also had a variety of tiles, both flat and three-dimensional and one of the latter seemed to be some type of war scene or coat of arms. And there were amazing views of the area extending to the sea.

 


After we had a coffee at the cafe, we headed out on the trails through the surrounding woods, including up to the High Cross -- a cross at the highest point of the property, as the name might suggest.

One the way down, we took a sort of off-road trail to try to get closer to a stone figure we saw from the palace but didn't seem to be on the regular trails. We found it, but on the descent back to the regular trail, I wound up skidding on loose dirt and falling on a combination of my rear and my right leg that was bent fully back -- the right way, to be clear, but not a position where all of your body weight should be on the joint in that position. Ummm.... Was able to get up but was in excruciating pain. And, oh yeah, still had to hobble down the hills on cobblestone paths. They were less than charming on the way down in my state. I made it, though, and was able to also hobble with suitcase back to the train station (not the scenic route with stairs this time) and we headed to Lisbon for our final night.

The only thing I wish we had had time to see in Sintra was Castelo dos Mouros which, as its name suggests, is a moorish castle. I had read about it and thought it would be interesting but the receptionist had noted that there wasn't much to see and you could see it from Pena Palace. Um, maybe we could have seen it from a particular view if we had done the tour of the Pena Palace, but otherwise didn't see it other than from the city center where you could see it high on the hills, but not close enough to get a good picture.

Braga and a night at a pousada

I can't lie -- I didn't want to leave the wine barrels and the quiet life at Quinta da Pacheca. While we were there, guys had been working on both rebuilding a section of wall and others were working on digging and setting up fence posts in a field. As we were leaving, we got to see them planting new vines in that same area and can attest to what the wine tour guide had noted about the soil being rocky. Looking at the soil (I realize this isn't a great picture), it's hard to see how a small vine can survive there, but clearly they do.

Our next step was Braga, which involved a train that connected in a suburb of Porto called Ermesinde.  While it was a decent sized train station (5-6 tracks, I believe, with escalators versus only stairs), the area has clearly seen more prosperous days. Our inbound train from Regua was delayed by enough minutes that we missed our connection, but another was coming through in about 30 minutes, so we set out to find some coffee.

One thing we have both commented on is the quality of espresso-based coffee drinks. They are consistently good. The drip coffee, though? Not so good. What is interesting to me, though, is that there is almost always an insulated pitcher or other container of hot milk to add to your coffee, which is nice.

Anyway, we found a coffee shop (which also sold lottery tickets, which was clearly convenient if the steady stream of people there for that purpose was any indication -- the jackpot was at something like EUR 57 million, so I get why that would be enticing). I went up to use my Portuguese and order a cappuccino and -- one of my favorite Portuguese phrases that makes me feel like I belong -- a meia de leite (cafe au lait). I didn't really see a price list, but considered that since we were at a train station there would be the public area premium for people passing through that didn't know where to go locally.  Yet at the same time, some of the special combos they were advertising like a croissant and coffee for EUR 1,50 made me think perhaps it wouldn't be that expensive.  But I figured it would be at least EUR 2 for both, so I handed her EUR 3.  She looked at me funny and handed me back EUR 1,20 in change.  What?!  Yeah. EUR 0,90 each. Amazing.  PLUS it was really good.

The local train to Braga was uneventful. Braga is the third largest city in Portugal and wasn't really covered in the tourist-type books I had looked at, though I had found some information online and we set out to check them out. There is apparently some sort of Roman history here with various cathedrals and castles and there was a Roman festival going on -- though I confess that I found a woman in Roman attire speaking on her cell phone a bit odd.

We were able to see most of the sites within less than an hour.  There is a beautiful stone entrance to a pedestrian-only walkway, Arca da Porta Nova. The medieval Jardim de Santa Barbara outside the Medieval wing of the Episcopol Palace that is bright and well-maintained with a central fountain and which was once part of the Convent of Remedios.  There was a plaza with a large BRAGA sign (think IAMSTERDAM) and, of course, Raio Palace. I had wanted to see the Bom Jesu do Monte which looks pretty amazing -- lots of steps (because, you know, Portugal and hills) criss-crossing and supposed to have a gorgeous view at the time -- but didn't see an easy way of getting out there (three miles outside of town) in an expeditious way.

I was more nervous this day than most because the hotel for the night was somewhere in Amares, but I couldn't exactly figure out how to get there.  It was clear that Braga was the closest train station and Google Maps said that Amares was about 25 kilometers beyond Braga. It appeared that there may be some bus service to the area, but it wasn't clear where the bus would stop in relation to the hotel and whether there might also be taxis when we arrived that could help get us there.  So I really wanted to make sure that we started to get there long before it was dark, hence my willingness to skip Bom Jesu.

What to do? In a moment of Americanism, I wondered to my phone whether Uber might be available (it certainly had not been in Regua).  Why yes, Uber is indeed available. Really? So we hailed an Uber that was there in five minutes. The driver was from Brazil but with my limited European Portuguese, we got along okay. He said that he's only lived in Braga a few years and wasn't familiar with Amares, but had GPS, so....

He seemed a bit concerned about where we were going.  We were climbing and going through some narrow village streets and he kept asking if we wanted to go into the city center or some larger roads, but we said to keep on and follow the GPS (though he seemed to have some difficulty doing so, missing a couple turns). Did we want to stop and take some pictures? No, we're good.

We finally arrived at the destination and noted that we were there but he seemed confused and asked a taxi driver next to where we had parked where the pousada was. The taxi driver said that this was it.  Oh.  He seemed both surprised and impressed by it.

Pousadas are large mansions, palaces, or other interesting locations of historic interest that have been transformed into lodging. As soon as I read about them, I had decided that we should stay at least one night at such a place. The one I selected is Pousada Mostiero Amares, which is the former convent of Santa Mario do Bouro. Beautiful grounds, lots of massive stonework and a moss-covered courtyard giving the appearance of ruins made for a stunning setting. While the food wasn't the best I have had in Portugal, the dining room itself was just cool with all the stone work, including a gigantic table that won't be moving anyplace anytime soon.

A brief wander around Regua

We had a sort of rest day our second day at Quinta da Pacheca. We walked the 15-20 minutes or so down to Regua, the town where we had arrive on the train. There's a nice pedestrian bridge that crosses the river and we happened to be there at almost the perfect time when the shadows made the reflections of the arcs in the bridge look almost like complete circles.

There were several river cruise ships docked there as well as a few smaller, local boats. We looked into the latter, but one was just a kitschy one-hour cruise for EUR 10 and the other was an afternoon/evening cruise for several hours, but then you had to take a train or bus back, so we just continued wandering around the town.

Like Porto, most of the tiles on buildings were set up quite high rather than at street level, though there were several places where various scenes had been painted on tiles, most related to the making of wine which makes sense, given all of the vineyards in the area. I've included a few here.

I think it's safe to say that one of the highlights was stumbling across a farmers market just as it was getting over. Lots of fresh fruits and vegetables, as well as dry beans and meats. Outside, there was a truck laden with huge bags of potatoes and at the side of the building an enterprise selling live chickens and chicks. Cherries are in season and Kimberley loves them, so we decided to buy some from a woman at one of the stands. The price seemed to be EUR 1 for an entire kilogram (over two pounds) of cherries. Suffice it to say that we didn't need an entire kilo of cherries, and just asked her to stop filling the bag at a certain point in time, but she kept pressing to add more when we offered the EUR 1 anyway. I used my best Portuguese to tell her it was fine but she still seemed confused why we wouldn't want to get our full kilo. Lovely lady.

I'm still not quite used to seeing meat hanging in the windows. The big ham things, yes, but I still find the goats or sheep (not sure which) a little unsettling.

We stopped at a somewhat local place for lunch that seems to be the regular lunch place of several employees of a local company (based on their matching uniforms). It was also the type of place where I think the server appreciated my attempts at Portuguese given her limited English. We had a table overlooking the river and that gorgeous view and some large salads only set us back about EUR 10.

After the long climb back up (always the hills....) to Quinta da Pechaca, we enjoyed a few more hours relaxing and reading on the deck of our wine barrel suite. Just so beautiful.

To the wine country

While Portugal is known for its port wine, of course, it also produces many other types of wine. The Douro River Valley is the heart of their wine production and was (particularly with an oenophile like Kimberley along on the trip) an obvious must-see.  While I created the overall agenda and booked hotels for the trip, she mentioned an interesting place in the valley that had some interesting accommodations. I checked it out and we were able to book one of them for two nights, so off we set.

We took the train from Porto to Regua. Since it was only a two hour ride and it was an intercity train, we didn't bother to pay extra for first class. Second class was generally fine, but was packed with other tourists also going to the wine valley, including one group of guys who were (at 9 AM already clearly imbibing something that wasn't coffee and with a steady stream of food being pulled out of a picnic basket blocking much of the aisle). 

We were lucky to (eventually) get seats together, not to mention on the side that overlooked, toward the end, the gorgeous river and valley. At one point the train kind of turned a bit and boom -- there was this absolutely stunning view.  I was trying to take photos, but you know how it is with a fast-moving train, poles and power lines getting in the way and viewed through a dirty window.

We grabbed a quick taxi on arrival to our destination -- Quinta da Pacheca.  It is a functioning vineyard and produces -- as we learned on the wine tour later -- about 700,000 bottles per year of white, red, and port wines. But what had lured us in were their wine barrels. Not those filled with wine, but cabins that you sleep in that are shaped to look like a gigantic wine barrel.  Super cool. While compact inside, it feels spacious with the round shape (and a round sunlight overhead) and with a large round door at the back that opens onto your own deck where you can relax and look over the vineyards.  Really unique and peaceful. We spent much of the afternoon there yesterday just reading and watching the swallows and other birds maneuver around the vineyards.

The wine tour and tasting was interesting. Nutshell, the winery has been in existence over 100 years. While the region has well over 100 varieties of grapes, Pacheca uses a relatively small subset of something like 20 in their various products. They still stomp grapes with their feet as they believe it better releases tannins and colors without the risk of the incorporating sourness of seeds that might occur with a machine pressing the grapes. Each of the concrete areas pictured here holds over 200 kg of grapes and the stompers, working arm in arm, take over 30 minutes to stomp from one side to the next.

We also got to see their old cave, though most of their production is off-site. One interesting thing I learned is that while wine can be placed into new barrels, port must be placed only in used barrels/containers. The large containers shown here can be used for over 100 years. Also, the difference between a tawny port and a ruby port is whether or not they are oxidized. A tawny port receives oxygen throughout the process, so it doesn't oxidize as quickly upon opening and can last a year. A ruby port, on the other hand, is more like "regular" wine in that it is not exposed to as much oxygen and thus, like a bottle of red wine, must be consumed within three days or it will become oxidized. (At least I think that's what I heard.) 

Another interesting point I learned about making wine in Portugal relates to usage of water.  The soil here is in the river valley is not good and one quickly hits rocks, so the grape vines are no more than 15-18 inches deep. They are allowed to water vines in their first five years, but not after that. So how, when summer months are often well into the 90s, do the vines not die?  As you might imagine, it's a microclimate. So while it is toasty during the day, it drops down quite a bit at night. This rapid change creates some humidity that then provides moisture for the vines. Because of the climate, their cave also gets a bit too warm. They control this by watering the pebble flooring of the cave which helps cool things. 

During the wine tasting, we had another random chat with interesting people -- a mother and daughter. The mother is originally from India, but settled long ago in the US -- first Rochester, NY and then Minneapolis, MN. I can only imagine the shock of winter coming from India. Their family has done a lot of travel throughout the years and the daughter who was with her on this trip studied in Brazil and Peru and picked up Portuguese. While she studied neuroscience in university, she felt a little burned out and not sure she wanted to proceed directly to medical school. So she took a few years off to volunteer for the Peace Corps in Mozambique, which is a former Portuguese colony (if that's the right word) so her Portuguese from her time in Brazil was directly applicable. She is training local teachers on how to teach science, and has spent a lot of time traveling in the area. She said that Mozambique is very safe and her primary mode of transportation is hitchhiking -- yes, as someone who doesn't look like she's from Mozambique and as a single female. Amazing. Just had a lovely time chatting with both of them and now Mozambique may be on my list for future travel.

We had an amazing dinner at the restaurant here with some of their own wine, and headed off to bed, looking at the stars through the porthole (no pun intended) in our wine barrel roof. Just magical.