Today fitted the common rhythm of sailing along in the morning and going out in the afternoon. We reached Peso da Regua about the middle of the day after a couple more locks, and immediately were put on buses to go to another quinta.
This one specialises in muscatel, which doesn't have a bad name here and is drunk frequently as an aperitif. It was a large winery and an impressive set-up. There are about a hundred passengers on our boat, and they already had two different restaurants with coach groups going. So tourism, and probably these river cruises, are big business. The food was meant to be authentically Portugese, and based on our limited experience this was probably right: it included bacalhau (fried cod-and-potato cakes), pork, and the main dish was mostly meat and potato. We haven't found the food particularly interesting overall, but Lynn said the wine today was better than in most other places.
It is now the evening and we have escaped from a fado performance. The music is okay, but they're very earnest in a folk/beat-generation kind of way and I can hear it still going on now.
No comments:
Post a Comment