Our morning is spent lolling around the apartment, organizing and getting ready for our move to Coimbra tomorrow. The weather is rainy and cool, so no morning walk – sadly – but we do have an afternoon boat ride and wine tasting to look forward to.

After a cold cut sandwich lunch, we make our way down to the waterfront to check in for our boat ride & wine tasting. We have a wonderfully funny and interesting guide, and only 6 others on the tour with us.

Oddly enough, we start out in a minivan, driving through Pinhao and out to Quinta do Roeda for our wine tasting – first before the boat ride. Eh, it works. No biggie – and once out of the van, we have an enjoyable walk through the vineyards with excellent scenery listening to our guide tell us the history of the vineyard and the area.

Up at the winery, we have time to relax a bit on the huge open air patio with excellent views across the Douro before heading in for our Port wine tasting, which was fun and convivial – fortunately we have a really great small group of people on the tour!

Wine done, we hop back in the van for the short ride down to the boat, where we have a fabulous time sailing down the Douro, listening to and laughing at our guide’s running hysterical narrative (all of which we’ve forgotten by now!).

A really fun little diversion, making for quite a lovely day. Later that evening we walk down the quiet streets and across the Douro to the aptly named Bridge 1870 restaurant for our 7pm reservations. Of course we are early – when aren’t we – and are loitering outside the gates when one of the chefs arrives. He takes pity on us and invites us in, telling us in broken English to wait for the rest of the staff. So sweet. It doesn’t take long for the host to arrive and we are seated, once again, in our private dining room (it was empty for a good 30 minutes!).

Tonight we feast on an excellent smoked meat and cheese board as a starter, then a wonderful octopus salad for Ed and a monstrous Filet (3 pieces!) for me. So much food – we actually took some steak home for lunch tomorrow!

A beautiful night time stroll down the now totally empty streets brings us back to our sweet little apartment above the Douro for our last night in Pinhao.