Day 5 – Oporto

Having arrived early - we think to get us out of the stormy waters which seem to pervade this part of the planet on a permanent basis at the moment! – we set off on our excursion to see the highlights of Oporto plus a visit to a port wine vintners in the city.

Oporto is a short drive away from the port area and has a beautiful setting in a well-defined valley of the River Douro.  The city lives and breathes the port wine industry - for which we seem to be its best customers – and we were soon at the vintner’s, breathing in the heady mixture emanating from oak barrels containing liquid with a good measure of brandy in it.  We listened to a talk from a clearly very knowledgeable young woman as to how they make port – although I must say I find I can enjoy it without even knowing how it’s made! – and then we were introduced to a beautifully laid out room where we were made to taste two fairly generous measures of port.  Well, someone has to do these things, I suppose!

Then I was really surprised to see they had a shop as we made our way to the exit.  Not wishing to appear ungrateful, we thought we really ought to purchase a few bottles – you never know when there will be a run on the stuff at home during the pre-Christmas period, so we thought it best to make sure our domestic stock levels remained well topped up.

After that we staggered back on to the bus, finished our city tour with a visit to the cathedral (didn’t compare too well when we thought back to Santiago de Compostela) and the railway station.  “The railway station”, I hear you ask.  Well, yes, it has the most tasteful blue Delft-type tiling in the entrance lobby, so it does rather put Worksop station in the shade.

Then it was back to the ship, or so we thought.  The cruise terminal at Leíxos has free access to brilliant, high speed internet, so the plan was to hop back on the ship, fetch my tablet and then get on the free internet access in the terminal.  Ha-ha!  Needless to say, there long queues on the dockside to get back on board (about 40 minutes).  Excuses were given later because of the tide level (higher than usual as it was blowing a gale, but predictable when a gale is blowing?) and the fact that the air bridge there didn’t work and Ventura had only one gangway of its own to deploy (perhaps they should take more than one with them?!)

This all meant that there was effectively no time for me to get off and then back on again before their relatively early departure time of 3.30pm – so early in fact that it seems we may have left 4 people behind!  After many announcements for 4 people to report to Reception immediately (including while we were casting off) we left amid warnings from the captain that it would be rocky yet again once outside the harbour.  He did suggest that it would get better after midnight and for the sea day across Biscay.

We dined early – another excellent meal – and then enjoyed some evening entertainment.  We actually lasted through the 8.30pm ‘Headliners’ show, but gave up after that as the ship was pitching and tossing once again.