Portugal River Cruise May 2022: Thursday May 5 Lamego

After breakfast this morning we loaded up for a half hour ride up to the city of Lamego, home of the Sanctuary of our Lady of Remedies. Its another beautiful, sunny day! (They say it gets very hot here in the summer). The Sanctuary is an important pilgrimage site in Portugal. Built in the early 1700s, it features 686 steps from the bottom (disappointed that we couldn't do that since parts were under repair...sure). The bus took us to the top so we could visit the church and enjoy the views. We noticed lots of the famous blue “azulejos” tiles.

After coming down from the Sanctuary we had a few minutes to visit some shops in the square. Sam bought a table cloth. There is also an impressive church adjacent. We browsed an interesting open air market that apparently happens every Thursday. A lot of the offerings were garden flowers and vegetables. More interesting were the cages of chickens, pheasants, guinea pigs, canaries and pigeons!

Back to the ship for lunch by 12:30. A guy had set up a tent right at the ship selling all things cork! Sam got a couple of bracelets. Did you know you can buy shoes made out of cork? (We learned that sticking to a schedule is important to be sure you reach the next lock at the appointed time! By the end of today we will have gone though ten locks since we started; only on two occasions did we have to wait our turn).

This afternoon we continued sailing down river toward Porto. Our on board entertainment was “tile painting”. A local artist brought us blank tiles with templates; she showed us how to use the template to paint the blue ink. She'll take them home to her kiln and bring them back tomorrow. We'll see how we did.

After our dinner of roast beef (excellent as usual) the entire staff presented itself so they could thank us for being such great guests. Likewise, it gave us the chance to give them an ovation for their outstanding service. A fun event!!

Tomorrow is our last day. We'll do a tour of Porto and spend the afternoon getting Covid tests and packing for an early departure on Saturday.