In our first 5 years of parenting Zach and I have learned that almost everything that is intimidating and seems like a terrible idea to do with kids turns out to be painless and rewarding. Or at the worst, you manage to mentally block out all the bad stuff so that you only remember the painless and rewarding parts. For example, I’ve already forgotten the horror that was our transatlantic flight and was gung ho about hopping on a rickety wooden boat called a rabelo with the girls to see Porto from the river.
We woke bright and early and strolled across the bridge to Vila Nova de Gaia, where crew teams were launching their sculls into the water for early races and even the coffee shops weren’t open yet (THE HORROR). We were too early for the boat tours so the girls played on a playground until we were able to snag coffee and pastries at a locals-only joint. As usual, we were treated like rock stars and Melina and Diane smiled (well, Melina smiled and Diane stared and blinked) as their cheeks were pinched and candy was doled out.
As were were paying our ridiculously low tab, we watched as giant tour buses unloaded elderly passengers onto the rabelos for tours up and down the river. We started to panic, imagining getting trapped on one of these tiny boats either in the inner section without fresh air, or the outer section in direct sun. The only boat that was empty was the ugly yellow metal one, and that just didn’t seem right. We wanted a rickety wooden boat, for Pete’s sake.
We were about to give up hope when we spotted the smallest, ricketiest, woodenest boat of them all, and we hopped right on with only about 15 other tourists. Everyone had a seat, and we were in the open air and fully shaded for the entire ride. I guess the size of the boat (and maybe the holes in the floor where water splashed through) kept away the tour groups. It didn’t matter, because for us it was perfect. We took the standard “Six Bridges Tour” in which the boat motors upstream under 5 bridges and the backtracks downstream again to reach the sixth bridge and then back to our dock. The whole thing took about an hour (our max attention span anyway) and the “English Tour” meant that every bridge was announced in Portuguese, English, Spanish, and the German (the max amount of instruction we can stay quiet for anyway).
We left the boat giddy happy. The girls were still flying high from getting to ride a boat, Zach was anticipating the port tastings were were planning to do next, and I was ecstatic that no one had puked on me. Definitely painless and rewarding. Here are the girls after conquering the Douro River:
After a tasty lunch we tiptoed into one of the “wine caves,” which are actually not caves but warehouses along the river where most of the world’s port wine is aged. These are no mom-and-pop shops, but Napa-style wineries with professional tours and swanky tasting rooms. We started in Calem, one of the nicer establishments, and we skipped the tour (remember, we have limited attention spans) and went straight to the tasting. Now. Athough there was a time when we knew a thing or two about wine, Zach and I have not had much experience in recent years and almost no experience with port. What we have tasted has been thick, sweet, and strong. But we always like it, so we opted to shell out the big bucks for an 8 euro “taste” of a 20-year old tawny port. The Portuguese standard for a “taste” is apparently much different from ours, and this was actually a full glass of wine separated into two glasses so that we could each have our own. The 8 euros were well worth it. This port made the ones we have had in the past taste like Manischewitz in comparison. It was light brown in color and although the nose was of strong brandy, it was smooth and semi dry and finished with a light spice and the distinct taste of walnuts. Wow. We asked about purchasing a bottle, but not only was it 70 euros, they also can’t ship to the US and our airplane tickets don’t allow carry-ons. So now I am plotting a trip to a villa in the Douro valley for a wine tasting week in a few years. Andrew, Megan, Erika, and Tony, start saving up!
One caveat on that trip…we will need to bring a babysitter. The girls were loud in the echoing wine caves, although the pourer didn’t seem to mind at all and in fact gave them free magnets. These were an extra bonus when we discovered that the euro cents here are magnetic. Then they were an extra burden when Diane decided to throw her magnet and coins across the tasting room just as a tour group walked in. Somehow she didn’t break anything but the force of her pitch sent her little body sprawling off of the metal bench and onto the floor. Crashes and wails echoed through the cave and we scurried for the door in embarrassment.
After a well-timed nap at the apartment we were ready to see more of the city, so we headed up the hill on the funicular to the city center. When you look at a map it seems like everything in Porto is spread out, but actually it’s quite concentrated and walkable, even with two little kids in tow. We hit the massive Gothic cathedral, the Praca da Liberdade, and hiked up a hill to the Igreja e Torre does Clerigos, a church with a 250 foot tower that soars high above the city and is covered with intricate and elaborate stonework. Unfortunately I don’t have any pictures of these sights as Zach’s phone went a little crazy and they were lost 😦 But I do have the one I took of a billboard as an early birthday present for Heather Boe. She will understand.
So back to the tower. Despite the fact that Melina should have been worn out from the walking we had done and Diane should have been in her usual contrary evening phase of whininess, somehow everyone was game for climbing the 255 spiral steps up to the top of this skinny stone tower. We paid our 4 euros and Melina and I started racing up the dark staircase, leaving Zach with Diane (she was declaring “I DO IT MY-SELF!” but we all knew he would need to carry her after about 15 steps. Melina and I oohed and aahed over the first few glimpses of the view that appeared through tiny holes in the wall, but soon the holes became bigger and then the bars on the windows disappeared. Every window was kid-sized and kid-level and right next to the staircase where tired tourists were pushing past us in the 2 foot wide passageway. I started to freak out. I gripped Melina’s hand and snapped at her to stay close but she wasn’t phased and kept hopping up the stairs, immune to the growing distance that was separating us from the rooftops of buildings below. At the top I flattened my back against the stone wall and clutched Melina against me until Zach and Diane caught up with us. With one look I could see my terror reflected in his eyes and all he could say was, “this was a terrible idea.” The top of the tower was only two feet wide and the only thing keeping the stong winds from blowing us off was the chest-high stone wall with giant cut-outs in it just the right size for a child to walk through. Zach couldn’t even bring himself to take one hand off of tiny Diane, who was laughing in his arms, so I pulled our camera out of his pocket, took two quick shots, and practically dragged Melina back down the stairs, barreling through tourists with a single goal in mind: the ground.
So there it is. That thing that seems like a bad idea to do with kids and is in fact, actually a terrible idea to do with kids. It was an hour before the adrenaline rush passed by enough for us to note that hey, we were at least in shape enough that we hadn’t gotten winded! Small victories. We rewarded ourselves with pastries.
Traveling Together 