Douro River Cruise

We spent the most enjoyable day on our trip so far on a 7 hour cruise up the Douro River to the area where the grapes for port wines are grown. Put a couple of boaters on a boat that's on the water, and you know things will go well. In addition to the stunning scenery, which I will feature in the next post, the most fascinating part of the day was going through two locks at dams on the river, the second of which raised us an astounding 35 meters (105 feet). It is the largest such lock in Europe. Here is a shot of our boat, and a couple of the tall locks, the first as we enter them and the second looking up the wall before we start up. We learned it costs the company 500 euros to go through the two sets of locks, mostly because of the electricity used in pumping the water.