Before we even had breakfast, the boat had slipped moorings and was heading to Barca d'Alva. Just to prove that it wasn't all rich food and wine, here is some fresh fruit that I had for my breakfast. I expect I went for the fry up after that.
After breakfast, I went up on deck as we passed through the lock at Valeira, which lifted the boat over 100 feet. This brought us perilously close to reaching some concrete bridges as you can see.
You can see the height difference here.
It was quite a bit more rugged here.
It being a bit wilder, meant that we were always likely to come across birds like this Griffon Vulture, which is one of the biggest birds in Europe.
Rather smaller cormorants were very common on the river.
In the morning we went to see the chef give a demonstration on how to make Portuguese custard tarts. This was followed by a talk from Raquel about other Viking destinations - not too much of a sales pitch really.
We enjoyed our lunch time as the boat was sailed onwards to the quay at Barca d'Alva
Then at 1445, we boarded the coach for the fairly short trip to the village of Castelo Rodrigo. This is a hilltop Medieval village which is almost as if time time has stood still.
The coach dropped us at the West Gate and we went on a walk through the fascinating streets of this quaint village. It is still occupied, but the number of residents has been falling and it is only tourism that keeps it alive, it would seem. There were two walks available to us, the shorter one to the church or a longer and steeper downhill one. We took the longer one, which was really interesting.
There were some fine views over the surrounding countryside and into Spain. These views were the reason the castle was built.
The chapel is very small and originally dates from the 13th Century, although there are later additions. It has a very nice painted ceiling. Photos were not allowed, so you can't see it.
Inside and out there were numbered slabs and some with rectangular holes. It turns out that the locals were buried under these slabs. Eventually, the parishioners who were still alive felt the need to adopt a more hygienic burial practice and the bodies were removed to a purpose built graveyard nearby.
The whole place just looks old.
They had a communal oven that was available to the whole village for breadmaking and roasting. Apparently there was a rota for use to prevent any problems.
For a long time Christians and Jews lived harmoniously in the village, but it passed back and forth between Portugal and Spain. The Spaniards and, later, the Portuguese began to persecute the Jews. In order to escape persecution from the Spanish Inquisition, some Jews would nominally convert to Christianity. The houses of these "converts" were marked with crosses such as this one.
Some Christians would burn candles outside their windows in these projecting stones.
There were a few of these houses where very small doors appeared to be a little odd. In fact they indicate something quite horrific. At the time of the Jewish persecution, families would be walled into their houses and the small doors are a result of upfilling of the floor level which trapped the residents inside.
On a slightly brighter note, this was the site of the town cistern where rainwater was stored to provide a supply when the castle was besieged. It seems to be Moorish in design and, indeed, the Moors held the town until 1055.
It really is a quaint place, full of little streets and passageways.
I could have spent much longer there, especially as it also had a micro-brewery, that I did not get the chance to visit.
Raquel often mentioned on the tour that the village had represented peaceful co-existence between, Moors, Christians and Jews for centuries. Certainly there appears to be plenty of evidence of influences from all these groups in the one very small village. There is also evidence in the domestic architecture of this.
There were very fine views from the old wall.
That's enough of the history lesson. Castelo Rodrigo is also famous for a white wine and for almonds. Here are the almonds outside a little shop, where they seem to be broken by stones on a wooden tray. Of course, this shop sold almonds flavoured with all sorts of herbs and spices, so it may just have been a tourist prop and they are actually all done my machine these days. However, I am prepared to believe it is all done by hand.
They were very tasty and we did buy some and that had nothing to do with the free tasters of almond liqueur topped up with local sparkling wine.
Once we had all bought what we wanted, we were back on the coach for the half hour journey back to the boat at Barca D'Alva.
There were some fine views over the countryside on the way.
Of course we were back in plenty of time to get rested and ready for the Viking Explorer Society Cocktail party. This was for those who had previously sailed with Viking. Of course, the boat is small and only had one lounge so some riff raff that had never sailed before were able to sit beside us and enjoy cocktails and canapes too!
Then it was dinner which included Seared Dorade fillet with a chickpea puree and warm vegetable salad. Sharon had this fish dish and declared it delicious. We had another fine selection of wines and then went to the lounge where a team game was played which we did not win!
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