Double excursion

A cooler day today, 28C, high cloud and sunshine for the return journey to Porto. I woke up at first light, half past five, cloudy, but no longer with smoke haze to blight the view across the river. Yesterday night and again this morning, hordes of swifts foraging for insects over water, looking like a swarm of gnats there were so many in view at any time. 

My digestion seems to be recovering from its overdose of unassimilated fat at lunch in Salamanca. I'm none the worse for throwing up last evening, a clear head after a decent night's sleep despite waking up very early. At seven thirty the ship started moving, and the extraordinary variation in landscape unfurled before us in reverse with two big locks before lunch. At the spot where the ship had taken twenty minutes to pass under a railway bridge, I went to the front deck and saw everyone pointing their phones skywards, well, towards the  house, folded down so that the ship could pass beneath it. Nothing to do with waiting for another ship to pass, the slowdown is inevitable for safety's sake.

I missed the daily briefing about excursions, and the cookery demonstration on making pasta de nata. Twice I've eaten mashed potato this past few days, and not considered that butter and cream may have been used for smoothness. I'll avoid them altogether next time. The cumulative effect has an impact on my ability to process non-dairy fat. Lots of salad and fruit for lunch, with a main course of red snapper and green beans avoiding the mashed potato, with a lovely organic wine with a kosher label from Casa Rodrigo.

The on-board internet speed is reasonable considering the mountainous territory surrounding the river valley, but sometimes during the day it's so slow as to be considered not working. With over 150 users on board with one or more devices each, some of them videoing as they go, rarely constantly, it's not surprising the provision is so variable. The added demand of AI on bandwidth adds to a problem which is only destined to get worse. 

Not everyone can or wants to afford a 5G phone let alone a 4G one for the kind of default connectivity everyone looks for. It's a tower of Babel situation and massively ambitious vanity project which collapses under its own weight in the days of clay and bitumen is echoed in the digital age in which we're fed with the illusion of omniscience if not omnipotence by the profiteers of this foolish age, so much like others.

After lunch we were taken on an hour's drive by coach to visit the city of Lamego in the central region of the Douro river, another town which has grown thanks to the 20th century wine industry. It has a 12th century cathedral of a diocese founded about 570 with a 12th century tower, but the rest of the building dates from the 16th and 17th century. On a hill above is the pilgrimage sanctuary of Our Lady of Remedies, a roccoco style building approached by a flight of 686 steps from the town below. What  was originally a chapel dedicated to St Stephen was replaced by a building dedicated to Our Lady started in 1750 and completed in 1905. Over the early years it became renowned as a place for healing miracles, hence its unusual dedication to Our Lady of Remedies. The coach took us up the hill to park close to the sanctuary . I chose to walk down to the Cathedral to the rendezvous for those who weren't interested in the religious side of the tour. I was delighted that my leg muscles and ankle joints worked as the good Lord intended all the way down. even if I was a bit wobbly getting off the bus later in the trip.

Once the coach group had assembled we were taken to a place near the foot of the steps for a tasting of  local espumanto wine, with a tapa of jamon, lomo, bread and cheese. Quite a full bodied white similar to a pinot noir, pressed for its white juice, not for its skin, plenty of bubbles. Don't mention champagne! This is more exclusive, given the more localised character of production, like so many of the Portuguese wines which are outside the mass production market. Way out of our affordability range.

We were back at the ship at six, and out again in smart casuals at seven for another bus trip of 20 minutes to the winery of Quinta da Pacheca hosting a supper for our ship's party showcasing their white and tawny ports, and wines derived from the same range of grapes. For the second time this week I found myself tucking into roast beef with a well matched fine wine. 

The event was accompanied by a keyboard player and a violinist who knew every popular song in the 20th-21at century canon, and chose them to great effect, getting diners on to their feet to dance and sing along to all the golden oldies with great delight and much sentiment. Superb professionalism. Musicians worthy of their hire. We got back to the ship just after half past ten. I was very tired after two excursions. Clare stayed on the ship and missed Lamego, but the evening was tiring for her and went on a bit too long for comfort. Nevertheless, it was marvellous to see fellow passengers unwind and have such a happy time. I confess to taking more interest in the music making than in participating, and was in no mood to get on my feet and dance without Clare.