After a nice breakfast on board the ship, still docked at Regua, we got onto the coach at 0830 for the half hour drive to the charming town of Lamego. It was another pleasantly warm and sunny day.
Once in Lamego, we drove to the awe-inspiring Santuario de Nossa Senhora dos Remedios - the Shrine of Our Lady of Remedies. Basically, the shrine for those for whom all other hope had gone.
Lamego is an ancient city, finally taken from the Moors by the Christians in 1057. People now come here for the sanctuary. Thousands of them come in August and September to pray. It was built in 1791 on the site of small hilltop chapel. There are fabulous views from the top, but to get there you have to climb up the 686 step staircase on your knees. Well, you do if you are a pilgrim, otherwise you get the Viking bus to the top. You can also get the bus back down, but we decided to walk down to the city centre.
The shrine and staircase are built in the baroque and rococo styles and could be described as a bit over the top, but it is all very impressive.
This is the "shrine"
The staircase offers views over the town, but it was a little misty as we started to walk down, although it did clear up afterwards.
You get better views of the shrine on the way down the staircase
It is quite a long way down, but there are terraces every so often, which makes it a bit less arduous. I had just got off my knees in this photo.
There are lots of tiled panels to look at on the terraces.
There are also little fountains on the way.
Nearly at the bottom now.
Made it!
It is impressive.
It dominates the view from the street below.
You can also see the Moorish fort dominating the city.
After we got to the bottom and looked at some of the little shops, we had time to go to the museum and take in the tapestries, for which it is rightly famous.
These were manufactured in Brussels and date from 1525-1530 - nearly 500 years ago!!!
They tell the story of King Oedipus from Greek Mythology.
The detail in these and others in the collection is just amazing.
After the museum, we all met and got back on the coach to be back at the boat to have lunch as it was about to sail for Porto. There were some nice views of the river on the coach journey.
The food on the boat had been very good, but we all agreed that the Penne Arrabiata for lunch today was one the best any of us had ever tasted.
It was very pleasant eating lunch as the boat meandered down the river.
Given that Nick had been exceptional in making sure that we had some very nice wines to accompany our meals, it was only right that he got to have his photo taken with us.
Of course, we could not miss Liliya from the photos either. She had really looked after us at every mealtime and she really was very sweet.
And so, we were leaving Regua on our way to our final berthing at Porto, before we were to move on to Santiago de Compostela.
Bob took the chance to get some golf in and it was just like home when it started to drizzle!
Rather than get wet, we went to our cabin and had a bit of a rest before it was time to go to the bar for cocktails and then another port tasting. The tasting was preceded by the opening of a 40 year old bottle. This was done by heating up special round tongs which were then used to cut into the neck of the bottle. Cold water was poured on and the top of the bottle broke cleanly off - amazing.
Then it was time for dinner again. I had the Iberian ham and melon and then this beautiful roasted Chateaubriand Bearnaise with sauteed vegetables and potato gratin.
We had a final visit to the bar for a nightcap and to say farewell to the bar staff and to Tiago, before going for our last sleep on the boat.
No comments:
Post a Comment