Day 6 - Along the Douro to Salamanca

Thursday, November 14th

Porto to Salamanca

We had a relaxing morning with time for a leisurely breakfast, and then we packed up for the long drive to Salamanca. Since it was still before 11:00, the road from the parking garage to the hotel was open. So we were able to leave our bags at the hotel, pick up the car, and drive to the hotel to collect our bags. That was much nicer than check-in.

We used the road along the river to take the fast way out of town. Unfortunately I missed the first highway on-ramp that Google wanted me to take but the reroute didn’t lose too much time.

And we were off to our first stop in Lamego. It rained on and off as we drove, so it was some slow going, but the vineyards along the Douro still looked pretty in their fall colors.

We eventually made it to the city of Lamego, and negotiated some narrow streets near the castle. It took a while to find a parking spot and we had to walk a bit in the rain, but partway there it stopped and we had nice views at the castle.







The part of the city near the castle was a maze of narrow streets. We kept walking uphill and followed the signs. It was a tiny area, so the castle was impossible to miss.

The weather changed every few minutes, it seemed. Rain in this direction, blue sky in the other direction. It made for some interesting views, though.







Like many of the smaller castles we've visited recently, there isn't much to the castle itself.








Walk the walls, look at a small exhibit in the tower, and that's about it. You can knock them off in about 10 minutes.





But we even had a bit of sunshine, if you could believe it! We didn't; thus we wore our parkas.


There was a small museum in town, also free, which we visited. Then we decided to look for a church in the town before moving on.



The Church of Nossa Senhora dos Remédios in Lamego is famous for its 682-step ornate staircase which leads from the lower town, to the sanctuary, high up on a hill overlooking town. It would have been easy to just drive to the church, but of course, we wouldn't ever do that…



We parked in the lower town and grabbed a 30-minute ticket from the meter, then decided to walk up “just a little bit” to see what it was like. Our car is parked on the right, two cars in front of the white flatbed truck.





Well, we have 30 minutes. We can climb up a little more...








The tiles are really pretty! They illustrate important events in the life of Mary. There are 12 of them; we can look at a few more.






Don't look now, Chris. We've come up a really long way! The road we parked on is barely visible in this picture. Do you think she knows that we'll end up climbing to the top?






Don't worry about the rain. We'll turn around at 20 minutes, so we can run down and get to our car before the parking ticket expires.

The landings in between the flights of stairs get more ornate as you get closer to the church.







So of course, we climbed all the way up. We can't resist a challenge! It took us only about 20 minutes, so we had a few minutes for views, in the rain, before running back down faster.





We made it back maybe a minute after our ticket expired, and drove off to the Capela de São Pedro de Balsemão. This ended up being an interesting drive!


The road leading there was very narrow, and we really wondered what would happen if we met oncoming traffic. Luckily, we didn’t. The church was empty, but open, when we arrived.

The church is quite old, but how old? Its age is debated. Some say it was first built in the 500s, and renovated in the 900s; others say it was built in the 900s. Regardless, the Romanesque-Visigothic design is quite ancient-appearing.





There are wooden carvings covered in gold decorating the altar.







And the sarcophagus of a former Bishop of Porto, who wanted to be laid to rest here. D. Alfonso Pires was buried here in the 1300s. It must have been an important church at that time.





So we got our quick peek inside, then headed back to the car to brave the super narrow road in the other direction. As we left, we saw the caretaker come around from the back of the building and re-enter. I think she had been taking out the garbage, or something. Amazing timing.

We safely negotiated the narrow roads, again, and then took a short drive back to the banks of the Douro for a stop at an actual winery - the first (and only) one we'd visit all trip. We hadn’t made an appointment but this place supposedly has a hotel and restaurant, so we were hoping that we could eat lunch and maybe taste some wine.

It turns out that this was one that has the guest rooms in large wine barrels! Chris had read about this in Travel & Leisure some time ago, but hadn't remembered the name of the winery. Cool!




We parked and went to the hotel-restaurant part, but nobody was at reception. The restaurant wasn’t too busy, but there was no hosting station. We found some staff wandering by and asked if we could have lunch – they checked, and said yes, just wait 10 minutes. So we did.



After 10 minutes nobody had come out to seat us, and others had wandered in to be seated, so we walked in and got a table. The food and the views were great!






The drinks were good too. Chris had sparkling wine and I tried a Port with tonic, both refreshing.







I had a delicious piece of cod, cooked in a herb crust served over greens and potatoes. It went well with a light red, at their recommendation. Chris had a huge chunk of veal, with a heavier red.





Dessert was chocolate, three ways. Chris got to have Port but I had an espresso, as I knew we had a lot more driving to do. It was at least another 3 hours to Salamanca.





Then we went to their wine shop to buy some of the wines we’d tried. We asked for a taste and it ended up being a lot of fun. They poured anything we wanted, the staff were friendly, and we ended up with five bottles.




That will complete our case of wine that we plan to bring back. Of course, we’ll have to drink one of the cheap whites from Tomar to get back down to 12 bottles, but that will be OK..

We wanted to make one more stop at the Miradouro São Leonardo de Galafura. Like any good scenic viewpoint, that involved driving on more mountain roads, but none as narrow as the roads to the Capela. It took seemingly a long time to get there because we couldn’t go too fast, but once we got there it was well worth the effort.




The Douro Valley stretched out before us and the views were just spectacular. And we had the whole place to ourselves. It was awesome!

They also had bathrooms, which was a good thing when you're looking at a 3-plus-hour drive. The men's room was fine. Chris saw a huge spider in the ladies' room, which made for a quick stop.



Now it was time to stop taking selfies, and hit the road in earnest. It was 4:30, already dusky, and we had at least 3 more hours to drive. Plus, Spain is an hour ahead so we lose another hour. Hopefully we can get to Salamanca by 9:00.

Luckily it was all highway once we got out of the mountains, and I stopped for gas so I wouldn’t have to worry about it later. But as we headed east, the weather deteriorated and the temperature dropped.


It got as low as 3C, with intermittent heavy rain, as the coastal weather pattern which had been following us all week gave us one last blast. By some good fortune, the precipitation remained liquid.

A few more electronic Portuguese tolls for good measure, and finally we crossed over the border to Spain. The first part of the road in Spain was only 2 lanes, and a slow speed limit of 80-90 KPH which was annoying, but the good part is that the weather finally broke and the driving became much less unpleasant. After another hour or so we got on a larger highway and made good time the rest of the way to Salamanca.

The town looked busy but traffic was never a problem, and we got to our hotel at 8:45 despite moving the clocks ahead an hour upon entering Spain. The hotel was easy to find and they had a nice spot to pull into while checking in. We unloaded all of our luggage and all of the wine that we'd purchased, so we could pack things up tonight. And we decided to take the easy way out, and let them valet park the car.

Finally, after almost 6 hours behind the wheel, I was done driving for the day! We had a glass of our Portuguese white wine in the room, but then we discovered that the hotel had gifted us a bottle of red wine as well. So it looks like we’ll have to take 13 bottles home after all. I packed all of today's wine into the wine checks, so our baggage would be compact and as portable as it could be.

I rechecked the Portuguese toll system’s website, and lo and behold, they had accumulated a few more toll journeys, and they had started processing and charging them to the toll card I’d bought! Wow, I think this might actually work! I knew that I’d passed a few more electronic tolls today, so I bought another €10 toll card, and hopefully completed the steps to have it linked it to my account.

We will keep an eye on it and see how this transpires over the next few days. The system seems to have a few days’ lag time in posting and paying tolls.

We needed to eat a bit despite the large lunch, but we definitely didn’t want a full meal. So we asked about a tapas bar and got a recommendation from the gentleman at the hotel who'd checked us in.

A few minutes’ walk to Plaza Mayor, where we made a full circuit to check out the dining options, and watch the university students start to get wild.

We found the place he’d recommended, settled in at the bar, and had some wine along with patatas bravas, croquettes, etc. Perfect amount of food, fast service, and just what we were looking for.


Back to the room to rest up, and to think a bit about what we were doing tomorrow. We had planned a lot for the Portugal portion of the trip, but nothing at all for Salamanca. Maybe we just ran out of time and energy? We looked at Trip Advisor and picked a few things to see tomorrow morning, and luckily, they were all within a few blocks of our hotel. Cool!

So, we are ready for one last push to Madrid tomorrow! I will be returning the rental car immediately upon arrival, and we’ll take public transport from there on. Finally, I’m almost done driving!