Portugal's River Of Gold – Lisbon>Porto – Viking Osfrid – 26 November 2025

 

Day  10 – Wednesday 25 November 2025 

– Cruise Day 8

Last day. Time to vacate the cabin was a reasonable 09:00, but we had depart the boat at 08:30 for a 12:25 flight. As usual, Viking wants to get you to the airport way too early. It’s normally a 20 minute drive to the airport, but that morning it took twice as long, though of course we had to wait for check-in to open.

And so we arrived home, but without my case which was delivered the following day with the Port bottles safely inside.

Summary

This cruise wasn’t planned; we took up a promotion of huge discounts on November and December Douro Cruises, thinking that while it might be November, it wouldn’t be too cold in the south of Europe. We were wrong, it was very cold.

We tried sitting out on our veranda one bright sunny day wrapped up in our cold weather gear, but lasted about 45 minutes and that was the first and last time we used the veranda.

 We've been to Lisbon many times and have both worked there. But if you want to see Lisbon – and it’s worth seeing – then the two nights of this cruise is not enough. There’s one full day there of which half is the included excursion. To maximise sightseeing don’t return from the morning excursion. Leave at the Maritime Museum. Enjoy a custard tart at the nearby Pastéis de Belém café, stroll down to the Monument to the Discoverers on the waterfront then stroll with the river on your right to the city square and enjoy Lisbon. You can get back to the hotel on the Metro.

 

We didn’t have the Silver Spirits package. The cruise was so discounted it wasn’t offered. We would drink Portuguese wine with meals and I am not familiar with the names, so correctly calculated that the included wines would be local and would be good. And they were.

I bought a bottle of Port for €9 locally for an after-dinner drink and a pre-dinner glass of Champagne from the bar each night.

But we enjoyed the trip overall.

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Portugal's River Of Gold – Lisbon>Porto – Viking Osfrid – 25 November 2025

 

Day 9 – Tuesday 25 November 2025 

– Cruise Day 7

Our last full day was moored in Porto, or to be correct, on the opposite bank at Villa Nova de Gaia. There was an include excursion Porto on Foot leaving at 08:30 which we missed preferring a leisurely breakfast.

In the afternoon at 15:20 was an optional excursion to Port Wine Cellars. The time scheduled for this was 1h25min including   walking to and from the cellars where 3 Ports – white, ruby & tawny – would be tasted. The cost was £83 per person (about €95). The cellar name was not on any documentation but it was Ferreira which could be seen close by the boat.

This excursion seemed a trifle expensive to me. There are a great number of Port Lodges nearby the boat, and we walked two minutes to Sandeman where we booked the superior 1790 tour which was lead by James, a young Canadian who’d worked in Ontario wineries and moved the Portugal to be with his girlfriend.

After an informative history of Sandeman, including some early TV adverts, the 7 people on the tour walked through the cellars. All our many questions were masterfully answered. Then instead of the public tasting room, we went into the private 1790 room where an illuminated opaque strip in the middle of the table enabled us to judge the wine’s colour by holding our glasses before it.

We tasted five wines, Apitive Reserve white, ruby Founder’s Reserve, 7 year old tawny Imperial Reserve , LBV (Late Bottled Vintage 2020) and a 20 year old Tawny Port which were explained and in turn we were asked our favourite. Mine was Imperial Reserve, a seven year old Tawny.

The 1790 tour lasted more than two hours and cost €32 each, thus for two of us it cost less than one person on Viking’s optional excursion and we tasted more wines

 We asked for our usual pre-dinner glass of Champagne but they’d run out and offered us a Prosecco which we declined. Then the barman had a bright idea, popped across to the boat rafted to us and came back with two bottles of Champagne. No-one talks about the benefits of rafting, but that’s one!

 Location: https://what3words.com/trunk.director.searched

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Portugal's River Of Gold – Lisbon>Porto – Viking Osfrid – 24 November 2025

 

Day  8 – Monday 24 November 2025 

– Cruise Day 6

 The cold that had been dogging me for some days was at its worst today, and I spent most of the day just lying on my bed. I didn’t go on the included Lamego excursion. I roused myself for afternoon tea at 16:45 and enjoyed a cup of loose leaf Dragon Pearl green tea and a rather good scone.

This was followed by the disembarkation briefing, about which nothing of import is ever said that’s not on the Viking Daily delivered to your cabin. All one needs to know is when the cabin must be vacated, when to put cases outside the cabin and when to leave to the boat to catch coach to airport.

By 18:00 we were tied up at our Porto mooring and we settle down to a demonstration of opening a Vintage Port using Port Tongs. We were each handed a glass of Port afterwards.

Location: https://what3words.com/trunk.director.searched

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Portugal's River Of Gold – Lisbon>Porto – Viking Osfrid – 23 November 2025

 

Day 7 – Sunday 23 November 2025

 – Cruise Day 5

At 08:45 was an excursion to the town of Favaios where we’d visit its museum, a bakery and co-operative winery and have lunch, while the boat cast-off and continued down river. It was quite a long coach ride, going up through low-lying patchy clouds.

There were 3 coaches and each visited the three sites in a different order. We first visited the small museum featuring the wine of the town, Moscatel de Favaios. The variety used is named Moscatel Galego because it was introduced by Galicians. (But Wine Grapes book says it is a synonym of the widely planted Muscat Blanc a Petit Grains).

The other local speciality featured in the museum is Four Corner bread, which is a large soft roll looking like crossed dumbbells. The enthusiasm of the young guide in the museum was infectious, but I wonder if he could maintain it for the next two groups.

Next we visited Favaios co-operative winery where the winery guide wore a fleece with ‘Follow me, I know where the wine is’ printed on its back. And so we did, taking the route grapes took from the receiving bay through  the cellar and finally to a glass of Moscatel de Favaios. This is a fortified wine, made like Port, but using Muscat grapes.

Then we were supposed to go to a bakery, but instead of a roaring fire the oven was cold and it was an exhibition kitchen, not a working bakery. The cook rolled dough and swiftly made a couple of Four Corner breads. She then reached out a basket of previously cooked rolls and we were invited to tear a roll in two and help ourselves to various savoury and sweet toppings.

Then all three coaches rendezvoused at Quinta Avessada at a large dining place set in vineyards. We had a watery soup, a slab of meat (which I was assured afterwards was beef) with mash. Dessert, which was chocolate cake with a whole pear poached in red wine, was best. Disappointing meal but plenty of wine.

Then to the coaches to meet the boat at Folgosa and onwards to stop at Regua, at 17:00, for our overnight mooring.

Location https://what3words.com/supermarket.merchant.farces

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Portugal's River Of Gold – Lisbon>Porto – Viking Osfrid – 22 November 2025

 

Day 6 – Saturday 22 November 2025 

– Cruise Day 4

Today is the full day excursion over the border to Spain and the city of Salamanca.

As we had been there before, and because we didn’t fancy the 2-2.5 hours in a coach each way we stayed on the boat. In the morning we explored Barca d’Alva.

Sleepy backwater and one-horse town may give an impression of a livelier place than the actuality.

At one time the railway terminated there. The track remains but the large station building is bricked up and the covered goods platforms are slowly decaying.

About a dozen people remained on board and Chef Misha took  our lunch  orders in the morning as he alone was doing the cooking to give his team time off.

At 13:00 the boat departed and two hours later moored in Pocinho. Those who’d been to Salamanca boarded at around 18:45.

 Location https://what3words.com/background.paints.cobbles

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Portugal's River Of Gold – Lisbon>Porto – Viking Osfrid – 21 November 2025

Day 5 – Friday 21 November 2025 

– Cruise Day 3

The ship cast off about 06:30 and two hours later we entered the Valeira lock.

At 10:00 in the lounge Chef Misha demonstrated how to make Portuguese custard tarts Pastéis de Nata.

He let us in on his secret that was ‘just between us’: he doesn’t make puff pastry but buys it from a supermarket. The trick in making the custard is to add components slowly, whisking all the time.

Shortly after the demonstration ended, and we’d eaten some Pastéis de Nata he’d made earlier we entered the last of the locks, Pocinho and then the ship made a brief stop at Pocinho where guests who’d booked the optional excursion to Marialva Castle for lunch departed.

We arrived at our furthest destination, Barca d’Alva shortly after 14:00 and the included excursion to the hilltop castle town of Castelo Rodrigo.

Viking class this excursion as “Demanding” which it certainly would have been when the entire street had a rough stone surface, but the installation of  new sewage system has left the main street with a smooth surface in the centre, see the photo. So it’s possible to do the beginning of the tour and see the ruined castle and hear the tales associated with it. We bailed out when the tour went down a long flight of steep steps to visit a church and walked back down to the start where we had a coffee in a shop with terraces out back offering amazing views.

Castelo Rodrigo was built on a high point offering panoramic views over neighbouring Spain and intended to spot any advance of hostile forces.  The coffee shop terrace gave us similar views. Their shop must have has at least 20 different flavoured almonds to sample. Curry  almond anyone? Incidentally, almond trees were introduced by the Moors and are a variety that can thrive without watering, so they grow all over this dry land.

The Viking description of the excursion says that on the way back the coach will be “stopping to take in the panoramic views”. It didn’t.

In the evening was ‘Taste of Portugal’, a buffet dinner of Portuguese specialities and the staff dressed in colourful costume – especially our divine Programme Manager Lidia Leal. 

Location: https://what3words.com/starkest.signposts.regain 

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Portugal's River Of Gold – Lisbon>Porto – Viking Osfrid – 20 November 2025

 

 Day 4 – Thursday 20 November 2025 – Cruise Day 2

 Also unusual is that there is no cruising at night on the Douro, so when we woke the boat was still moored at Cais de Gaia, but by 07:00 we were cruising in land. The Douro is very rural and the cruise is not for those who want to moor by bustling cities. And people in past times didn’t construct their villages by the river for fear of pirates from the sea or bandits coming down river. 

Until the EU funded the building of modern motorways and impressive bridges travel was difficult. Even the Douro had challenges with boulders in the water and vicious rapids. Cruising is possible only because the rapids have been replaced by dams and massive locks – the deepest in Europe, and boulders blocking the water were dynamited. But the river is navigable only to the Spanish border. The Spanish also dammed the river but neglected to build locks.

 After two hours we reached the first lock. Cretuma-Lever and 2h45m later the Carrapatelo Lock.

At 14:30 there was an included excursion to Mateus Palace and Gardens. As we had visited Mateus twice before, most recently June 2024, and because it was cold we gave this a miss and stayed on the boat as it cast off and shortly afterward we were in the third lock, Bagauste.

We moored in Pinhao about 17:30 and the Mateus party re-joined the boat.

Mooring location - https://what3words.com/herbals.cuter.plunge

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