PORTUGAL AND SPAIN 2018: DAY 9

Tuesday 16th October - Pinhao and Regua

By the time that we were in the restaurant for breakfast, the Torgil had been sailing for a little while. We enjoyed our fruit, cereal, breads and omelettes as the scenery glided by.

At 0915, we were moored at a little town called Pocinho, where we caught the coach to go off for the whole day to Favaios. Favaios is a small village with a population of 1500, living at over 2000 feet above sea level on the plateau of Serra do Vilarelho. It is known for two things - bread and wine. We had come to see both.

We started with the wine. It is not just any wine, however. Favaios is famous for Muscat wine, which is sweet and can be drunk before or after a meal. In 2012, the 1980 wine was considered to be the third best Muscat in the world. What is astonishing about this feat is that the village was on its knees after it had been excluded from the denominated area for making port or other fortified wines. Young people left the village, services shut down, the economy crashed. Rather than languish in despair, the village got together, formed a co-operative and persuaded the government that if they could not make port then they could make Muscat, which is also fortified.

Now they make Muscat on an industrial scale and every grape grower in the area is part of the co-operative and the village has recovered its economy.

These are the stainless steel fermentation vats, where they start the process of making tens of millions of litres of Muscat.

It is made in the same way as port in that the fermentation is stopped quickly after about three days by the addition of 70% proof clear alcohol. This means that all the sugars in the grapes are not fermented out and you are left with a naturally sweet fortified wine. It is not port, because of the grapes and it is also pale golden in colour. It almost matches the barrels!

Of course, we got to taste some despite it only being ten in the morning. We all pronounced it lovely and so went to the shop and bought 8 bottles to take home. They were only 55ml, so it as not as greedy as it sounds.

We hopped onto the bus for a five minute ride to the local park, where we met a local guide who brought us to see the next most famous thing about Favaios - the bread.

We took a short walk through the narrow and quite quaint little streets.

We were led into the pretty small, old fashioned bakery, to meet the baker, Donna Rosalia. Donna Rosalia is not just any old baker. She was the last maid of the Portuguese dictator, Salazar. He used to take young boys and girls from rural areas and give them jobs in his household. Donna Rosalia was 14 when she was taken from Favaios to Lisbon in 1969. She is now 63 and makes 1000 loaves of the special Favaios bread a day. There are 7 other bakeries, so they make 8000 loaves a day to sell as far away as Lisbon and Porto as well as in the surrounding area. They all make a similar four cornered bread shaped like a four cornered pillow. However, each baker makes it in a slightly different way, with some sort of "secret" involved. Apparently Donna Rosalia gets the water for her dough from the village well first thing in the morning and that makes all the difference. Well, that and her insistence on folding the dough 12 times.

Whatever the secret, we had a taste and it really was pretty damned good and went well with another little glass of Favaios Muscat.

Donna Rosalia showed us how the folding of the dough was done, although she was pretty hard to follow because she was very fast. She did ask if anyone wanted to try and one gentleman did, but she was not impressed and did not use his dough.

I persuaded Sharon that she would be able to master this, so she rolled up her sleeves and got stuck in. She did, in fact manage to do it and Donna Rosalia though her effort worthy of retention and it was put along with all of her loaves to be baked later in the day.

Here she is putting Sharon's loaf with all of hers ready to prove again and then be baked. It has to be said that she made 3 or 4 loaves in the time it took Sharon to make 1.

Here are the bakers with The book detailing Donna Rosalia's life as the last maid of Salazar.

The bread is made in big brick built ovens.

The fuel for the ovens was kept just outside and included grapevines.

We then took a short walk to the village museum, which has a lot of exhibits about - yes, Muscat wine and bread.

This may or may not be where Donna Rosalia gets her water.

The village is old - the inscription above the church gives the date of construction as 1676.

There were lots of interesting little shops and workshops. This man was upholstering seats in a tiny workshop crammed full of stuff.

At the end of our visit to the museum, we were shown a film made by the local schoolchildren which emphasised how much the village had turned itself around and now had a bright future ahead of it.

We also got out onto the balcony to take in the wide ranging views.

We then had another short bus ride to the Quinta da Avessada. We were there because we needed some lunch and also to taste some more Muscat wine. You might think all we did was eat and drink and you would be pretty close to the truth.

The Quinta is a nice building and gardens with great views. It has been in the Barros family for generations. We were mat by one of the family and an enthusiastic little accordion and drum band. We were shown round to the front garden and offered more Muscat to drink, which it would have been churlish to refuse.

After our little refreshment, we were shown round the operation by Mr Barros, who, as our guide had told us, was the image of Mr Bean, not only in looks but in mannerisms - he was hilarious. I did not take a photo as that might have seemed a little rude.

He showed us where the grapes are trampled by foot in large stone basins.

There were wines stored in enormous barrels that were vatted by his father, grandfather and great-grandfather.

They make a fair bit of wine here and the estate was one of the founding members of the co-operative.

Mr Bean then invited us all into his grand dining room for a typical (he said) lunch. He also told us a joke, which I will not repeat, because it would take me too long, but it had to do with the Greek Gods and the invention of wine.

So to dinner with Mr Bean's own wines alongside.

We had starters of cod fishcakes, salad, chicken sausage, black pudding - very nice.

The main course was slow cooked beef, roasted potatoes and veg. The beef was divine - so soft and tender. There was a huge choice of puddings - I had the cheesecake which I enjoyed. It was a nice meal, but I would be surprised if it was typical.

We had a bit of time to spend in the garden before we had to leave.

While we had been having a delightful time in the hills, the ship had moved to Pinhao and that is where we rejoined it at about 1530, just before it cast off to head for Regua.

We often saw these Rabelo boats which were originally used to transport barrels of port down the river to Porto. Nowadays, they may be sponsored by port warehouses, but they carry tourists instead

We continued on our way along the river to Regua.

Sharon spent a little time deep in thought on our cabin veranda

Of course, this just passed the time until it was time for the Captain's cocktails and dinner again. The highlight of dinner was the chocolate fondant. Before that I had the blue cheese dressed salad and then piri piri chicken and, of course, more wine.

Here we are enjoying dinner.

This very nice wine helped the enjoyment along.

After dinner we were treated to Tuna - a band of traditional student musicians. They were very good, and one of them had the most astonishing jumping and clapping dance.