It’s cold and rainy in Porto, but we get up early and walk down steep, rain-slick streets to board our boat to Regua. We are assigned to table 14 — all tables are below deck in a surprisingly large room — where a youngish Swiss couple (the man looks exactly like the French tennis player Adrian Mannarino) are seated next to the window. Breakfast of rolls, butter and coffee is served as we motor under Eiffel’s bridge toward Regua on the wiiiiiiiiide and smooth-as-silk river Douro.

The banks along the first section of the river are very green —how could they not be under steady daily rain — with occasional groups of farms or houses. There are large glass walled homes and a large “campsite” dotted with tiny shacks, each sprouting a small satellite dish.

Lunch on the boat is 3 courses and every couple gets a whole bottle of wine (Hemingway again).

Complete confusion as we disembark at Regua with several guides on shore for different groups shouting names and directions. But a rolly-polly man with Tony Soprano’s voice tells us to come with him to visit a very high lookout point and drop us at the winery Quinta do Portal. The drive takes over an hour through hills that are a mosaic of vineyards. It reminds Cynthia of the rice paddies of Nepal.

The hotel is beautiful but we have to walk around for 15 minutes to discover no one is around to check us in or give us a room key. We call the hotel and reach someone up the hill in another building, who drives to our building and gives us our keys. We ask where our dinner will be and he points up the cobbled wet road into the far distance and says, “You walk over that hill on the road and the restaurant is the first building on the left.”

Cynthia’ not down for a 15-minute pre-dinner stroll,and asks about how we might get to the restaurant other than on foot.

“Take your car,” our young concierge says.

So, after wandering around the joint(s) for the remainder of the afternoon, we shower, gussy up, rug up in rain gear, and trudge up the rainy, wet, cobbled road through a vineyard to our eats.

(Abut out of chrono here): Before we leave for dinner,Cynthia is sooo cold. It takes us a while to figure out that there are 2 thermostats of which only one is for heat. It turns out that the included dinner with wine pairings is a tasting menu and terrific. We enjoyed all the food and the wine.

David didn’t want the fish course so they prepared something special. Vegetables with perfect egg and edible silver foil.

The next day we are driven to Pinhao for a short cruise further up the Douro river. Then a train ride from Pinhau back to Porto.

The train stations are all beautifully decorated with tiles.

We while the PM wait for our train in a tiny local bar named O Porco where we get enormous salads filled with several kinds of nuts lettuces, cheeses and pig. We drink port, of course.

Our train is the last to Oporto and we compete with scads of tour groups for seats but manage to get two. The ride in frequent rains is uneventful. About 30 minutes out of Oporto, after the train has emptied passengers at a few stops, a man sits across from us and smiles the broadest, most infectious smile we have seen in many a year as, through gestures alone, he lets us know we need not move our bags on the window seat where he might want to sit.

We ride together to the Oporto station and he beams at us, salutes, and leaves the car as we gather our bags and go into the grand tile-walled station.

Gawk, gawk, click, click, and we walk five minutes downhill back to our hotel where we are given a different but wonderfully quiet room where the staff already have put our bags.

And sleeeeeeeeeep.