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City Tour of Porto with Bruno
Train station where J.K Rowling got some of her inspiration for her Harry Potter books. São Bento Railway Station
Douro River Cruise from Regua to Porto
Our captains...Carina & Jorge Entering the Carrapatelo Lock on the Douro River. Largest in Europe. Lunch along the way. Maria Pia Bridge designed by Gustave Eiffel. Built in 1877.
Cork Workshop @ Quinta da Pacheca
Our residence artist gives us a brief history about the cork tree. Cork is harvested from the outside layer of bark without hurting the tree. Cork trees can live hundreds of years, but need to be around 25-30 years old before you can start harvesting cork. Let the fun begin. We have lots of laughs about our grape & wine leaf designs and future assisted living projects. Mike encourages Oscar to continue to help him with the cork placements. Mike finishes off his piece. Karen and Oscar redesign the grape theme into palm trees with coconuts! Formula One Oscar Rodrigues, the resident artist, shares contact info with Mike. Here we are with our final products. We learned so much from Oscar. His creativity, positive attitude, encouragement and his advice on living a colorful life made our day joyful! Ricardo was our informative driver for just a short time, another fantastic guide. He took us to a nearby town and made arrangements for our ...
Quinta da Santa Julia - Hands on Cooking Class
Rafale, our guide, was excellent and very knowledgeable. Mike is standing in front of a magnolia tree estimated to be 300 years old. This is the private chapel for the owners. There is a story about the brother of Julia. He had traveled to Spain to do some trading or business and saw a statue of a girl named Julia. He purchased it as his young sister was very sick and could not walk. He brought it back home with him and the family prayed along with the entire village. Instead of naming the property after a sir name, it was named after Julia. She became well and lived until she was 90 years old. Our guide asked us if we could guess why this marker might be placed here. Lynn guessed that it was Julia's grave site! She was not correct. This is the #3 marker: The granite markers defining the original boundary of the Douro Valley are called Marcos de Feitoria (Feitoria markers). Installed between 1757 and 1761 by the Marquis of Pombal, these historic 3-meter-tall st...