Porto, Portugal

Scott snapped this great picture from the boat we took on the Douro River. We enjoyed a short hour long cruise, but they have longer ones, all the way up to 8 day cruises. The Douro River is the "highway" to ship the port from the vineyards up river to the caves, where the port is bottled and shipped out, in Porto. The house we rented was an hour drive up the river from Porto and from our veranda we watched big cruise ships slowly drift by. Porto is a very hilly city, a lot like San Francisco. The houses are as old as they look. The Portuguese seem to like the peeling plaster, rusty iron, loose tile look. In America, we try to replicate it, in Portugal, it is the real thing.