'Mode': AROUND
Category: Ship/Boat
Getting TO/AROUND: Cruising the Douro River is now a major tourist activity in Portugal, made possible by the construction of dams along its lower stretches leading down to Porto itself. Here, we met a cruise ship, the 'Dora Azul', coming down-river from Pinhao on the headpond of a dam that we passed not very far east of Regua. These cruises sometimes come from Spain and can take 8 days or so, including visits to Port wineries and vinyards. Others may be a day trip up-river from Porto to Regua where passengers are bussed back to Porto or you can select a short cruise out of Regua itself. The 'Dora Azul' usually departs from Regua for an all day cruise up the river, traversing the locks at three different dams as it continues past Pinhao. Transportation back to Regua is by train. Costs for these cruises vary greatly depending on which option you choose! On our drive back from Pinhao, we noticed that this cruise ship was nowhere to be seen. It had obviously used the lock at the side of the dam to reach the very shallow looking water on the downstream side of the dam, but we did notice that this part of the river had Red and Green navigational markers along its rocky looking riverbed!
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Pinhão
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on Oct 2, 2004
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