Trip Recap
We recently returned from this tour (7/24 - 8/4). After 17 land tours this was our first river cruise. I'd like to share overall opinions and then include specific on a day by day basis in subsequent posts.
The Andorinha is a very comfortable ship with a highly attentive staff and great food. The cabin was very nice. The ship is only three years old, so everything was new. For people with limited mobility, this may not be the tour for you. The elevator did not go to the upper deck and it was not easy to get on and off the ship. In some instances you needed to go through other ships that were docked next to us. In one instance we needed to climb to the upper deck to get to the adjacent ship. Depending upon the tide the gangways often were very steep.
We thought the pork loin the final night on the boat was the best food of the trip surpassing that at DOC. Each night we had cream soups that were wonderful. We had two very enthusiastic tour guides along with a cruise director. There was also a hotel manger on the ship who took care of everyone's needs.
Due to the narrowness of the river and the number of locks that need to be traversed, the ship travels during the day and docks at night. As a result, when it docks you are not in a place that can be explored before or after dinner. You can do some small walks along the riverbank but do not see much.
The best docking was in Porto where the ship was in a marina in Vila de Gaia downriver from Porto. You can walk along the estuary to the Atlantic and see the beaches (or even put your toes in the water). The coast line has a combination of sandy beaches and rocky coastline. While not as rocky as in Maine, it is more like Maine than other parts of the Atlantic.
The trip goes through a number of locks (one as high as 45 meters) followed by going under bridges which require a number of structures to be lowered and the umbrellas on the upper deck to be lowered. The ship was designed specifically for these locks which fit one ship with only feet to spare on either side.
We were glad that we chose this itinerary which included cities at both ends of the tours.
Would we go on another river cruise? We're not sure.
If you are considering this tour, I would recommend not going in July or August. It was VERY HOT (over 100F many of the days) making some of the activities very uncomfortable. I think it would be much more enjoyable in the fall or the spring.
Comments
Nice review. For comparison purposes the Douro is probably the most relaxing river cruise Tauck does. Others have busier itineraries with a wider range of activities. Also the no sailing at night means quieter sleeping. Most cruises do a fair amount of dinner time and overnight cruising. its not a bad cruise, just different.
Lisbon (pre-tour and days one and two)
We spent two extra days in Lisbon at the beginning of the tour. We had been to Lisbon twice before and chose to visit places we had not seen. One day we went to the Tile Museum. The museum is in a building that had originally been a convent that included a church which had some really nice tiles.
Afterwards we went to the Praca do Comercio and were surprised to see a small sandy beach with people swimming in the Tagus. There was a beautiful breeze off the river that was in contrast with the heat only a few hundred years inland. There were people making sand sculptures which was totally unexpected.
We also followed the Rick Steves walking tour of the Alfama area. It includes some beautiful churches and view points among the steep and windy streets.
The Tauck portion began with a reception and dinner at the Queluz Palace. The location is just outside of Lisbon with beautifully planned gardens.
The Tauck tour gives three options for tours. We chose the Discovering Lisbon tour which included a ride to Belem with visits to the Maritime Museum and the Discoveries Monument and the Belem Tower. We had a very good guide who set the scene for the Portuguese explorers that we learned about in school - daGama, Magellan, Diaz..... We also learned that there was discussion regarding which areas could be claimed for Spain and which for Portugal. The Pope stepped in and set a line in the Atlantic where everything to the west went to Spain and everything to the east to Portugal. Portugal lobbied to get the line set far enough West so that they would get Brazil. This is also the home of Pasteis de Belem which are far superior to the pasteis da nata that you get in the hotels.
On the free night in Lisbon we had dinner at a restaurant called Pateo 51. While it was hard to find, down a small alley, we would recommend it highly. My sister-in-law and I shared a dish called Cataplana. It is a seafood stew cooked in a copper pot with a lid consisting of monkfish, shrimp, sweet potatoes, peppers and onions in a very tasty broth. Another in our party had shrimp "a bras" which also comes in a codfish version.
Days three and four (Porto and Coimbra)
On our ride to Porto we learned about the Portuguese university system. Since each university specializes on a specific course, in the ninth grade students are asked to decide what course of studies they would like to pursue and take the prerequisite courses in high school.
At the University of Coimbra we walked across the quad and visited the library and the chapel before going to the downtown area where were were treated to a short Fado performance. In Coimbra Fado is performed entirely by males. In other part of Portugal you might see it performed by women as well as males.
After we had boarded the ship, the captain took us for a cruise into Porto. This was a great choice since the next morning when we had our rabello boat ride into town it was so foggy that we could not see very much.
It was weird waking up to so much fog that you could not see very far. Fishermen were out on the river only yards from our window and you could see schools of fish right by the boat.
Of the three tour options offered, we chose, Porto by River Land and Air. We were disappointed. The land portion did not include much. We drove to a park where we used the rest rooms and saw a few fishermen in the fog. We chose it because we wanted to go on the cable car. However, we found that if you chose the Walking Tour of Porto you would also go on the cable cars and would get to see much more of the city. If you can do the walk, I would recommend making that choice.
Since we had been to Porto in the past, we returned to the ship for lunch and then walked along the river to the estuary at the ocean where we got to see the marshland and the Atlantic beaches.
This evening Tauck offered a highlight of a TUNA which is a musical group performing traditional Portuguese songs. These were done by a group of students from the Catholic University of Porto. They all had on capes with patches representing Portugal, their home towns and their majors along with competitions they had been I'm.
Days five through ten (Cruising on the Andorinha)
This cruise is very low-keyed with travel on a comfortable ship through a pretty part of the country. It includes visits to three wineries, transit through five locks and visits to three cities/towns. With the exception of Guimaraes, the towns are very small and don't have many sights. Some of the towns are on one of the trails of the Camino de Santiago which you can identify by the scallop shells.
The locks are pretty phenomenal - just large enough for the ship to fit in. You could actually touch the walls as the ship is rising. The lifts are anywhere from 46 feet to 115 feet.
As part of the tour you visit three wineries, have lunch at one, see a beautiful garden at another and lean how to make port cocktails.
No one on our trip took the bike ride option on day 6. This may have been due to the high temperatures we encountered.
A number of people spent a large amount time in the pool which was heated like a bathtub.
As you moved east along the Douro the temperatures rose significantly. I had expected it to be cooler on the river. This was not the case. It started relatively cool in the morning but was over 100 by the time we reached early afternoon.
While this cruise is not like a large ship cruise (maximum of 80 guests), it did offer evening entertainment - a TUNA singing presentation, a flamenco demonstration, staff performances (especially a very talented crew member who sang Fado), a trivia contest, karaoke and dancing.
Days 10-12 (Post-cruise and Madrid)
We drove to Madrid stopping Salamanca which is a beautiful town with a renowned university and cathedral and a Plaza Major. We thoroughly enjoyed the visit and see it as a place where you could spend a few days.
Madrid is a nice city and Tauck offered some good options. The day we arrived we went on a Tapas tour where we sampled two tapas and a drink at each of two restaurants. It was nice and for us was sufficient for dinner.
The next day we began with a walking tour of the area around the hotel and the Puerta del Sol, the Plaza Major and the Mercado de San Miguel. We ended up with a guided tour of the Prado which we found very informative. In the late afternoon we went to the Royal Palace for a tour which was anything but fun. The palace has virtually no air-conditioning with only one room containing china cooled. With temperatures over 100F, it became very uncomfortable.
The Tauck hotel in Madrid is the Westin Palace. It is undergoing refurbishment. As a result the main entrance and the lounge/breakfast room with the stained glass dome are closed. You enter on the bottom level and need to take two elevators with a walk in between to get to your room. Some of us needed to move our rooms. The one originally assigned to us had scaffolding outside the window and had dust like a construction zone. Don't hesitate to ask to be moved. The hotel was not full and they were very cooperative.
We stayed an extra day, went to the botanical garden and Retiro Park to mitigate the heat and had an afternoon dinner at Casa Botin which specializes in roast sucking pig and advertises as the world's oldest restaurant. If you are interested in that restaurant, you should make reservations before you leave. It was a Sunday and even four weeks before the visit were we not able to get an evening reservation. While I'm sure a lot of tourists go to this restaurant, we found a number of Spanish families and young couples eating there.
Kathy: Thank you for your very informative, detailed review. I enjoyed reading your comments.