Porto Day 10: Historic Porto Bus Tour, Cable Cars and Port Wine Tasting

We decided to finish our Three in One deal with Yellow Bus Tours by taking the Historic Porto route. Our plan of attack started with breakfast. We were pretty worn out from all out travel yesterday, so we skipped breakfast at the hotel. Instead, we found some nice take away sandwiches and coffees at a restaurant near the Praça da Liberdade. Armed with breakfast, be boarded the bus!

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Once again, we saw many of the buildings and parks and squares of this very old city. Regardless of how many times we have seen the sights, there is always something new. Despite having been around the city several times, we still picked up interesting tidbits. For instance, the original city charter dates back to 461 according to the tour guide. Also, the Portuguese spoken by the people of Porto is slightly different than the rest of the country and there are some words that are specific to Porto. For instance, a beer (cerveja) in Porto is called a finol. It specifically refers to a small glass of beer, but the word is a Porto word. This tour also took us across the Douro to Vila Nova de Gaia and gave us a few new sights.

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When we finished the tour, Donna suggested we find some Port to sample. Even though Port takes its name from the city of Porto, Vila Nova de Gaia is the city that produces the most Port. We opted to trek back uphill from the Praça da Liberdade in order to cross the top level of the Ponte Luis I. The top level typically has less foot traffic and one can dodge the train traffic more easily than the auto traffic on the lower level.

Once into Gaia, we opted to ride the Teleférico de Gaia cable car down to the wine/vending/riverside area of Gaia. When we bought the tickets, we received coupons for one free glass of port at Quevedo. An omen… sign from above? – perhaps. We just thought it was pretty neat! And it was very nice of them to help us decide where we would taste our port – there are SOOOO many tasting rooms! We followed the map (also assisted by Google Maps) and found ourselves at Quevedo. At some point we would like to tour a port facility, but since (barring disaster) we will be back in Porto in the near future…we are saving that experience for later.

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Before we knew it, we each had four glasses of port and one very generous Portuguese cheese tray. Port wine comes in four flavors, white, rosé, red and tawny. Port wine making begins by processing the grapes in the same fashion as wine. Early in the fermentation process, clear distilled liquor is added to the wine to stop the fermentation. The result is a stronger and very distinct tasting wine. The white, rose and red ports are bottled and served. They are younger and capture the flavor of the fruits. Tawny port is aged in barrels, which sacrifices the fruity flavor for more flavor complexity. Our favorite is definitely the tawny. The hosts at Quevedo were kind enough to provide us a sample of their 10-year tawny after we’d finished our tasting. And we were kind enough to buy a bottle from them – yum!

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The cheese board cannot go unmentioned. We received three cheese samples, one cow milk cheese aged with paprika, one goat milk, and one cow and goat milk. Though they were all good, the mixed cheese was amazing! Additionally, we received a fig jam, which was just heavenly! All were delicious. As we figuratively stumbled out into the street… we decided that a second ride on the cable car was preferable to climbing the (at least) six stairs back up to our hotel. This would have also been a good time to grab the funicular, but the cable cars were closer. So up we went, once again taking in the amazing sights of the Douro River Valley! And finally in our room back to the hotel, we took a small (port assisted?) nap.