From the Sera de Estrela mountains to a wedding at Amarante to the night life of Porto . . .

​From the Fishermen’s Trail we headed north again – back past Lisbon and up into the Sera de Estrela mountains to a small village called Sabugueiro. Not content with being Portugal’s highest village, we somehow ended up in an Airbnb at the village’s highest point, accessible by a single cobbled track which seemed almost vertical. I decided to give it a go in the rental car and, accompanied by some sharp intakes of breath from my less than trusting passengers, we made it.

Casa Alcina is an awesome two-bedroom apartment with a long balcony designed for sitting, viewing the mountains and blissfully not much else. If you ever want to visit a place where time virtually stands still, visit Sabugueiro. The goat herder brought his charges down our lane each evening, elderly couples worked their vegetable patches and others basically just sat and stared. Staring is a national pastime in Portugal by the way . . . 

Our host, Alcina invited us on a trek the following day in the mountains. We drove to an old hydro-electric dam and from there hiked around 10 km through the most awesome mountain scenery to a place called Cavão Dos Conchos. When the dam was being constructed, the engineers decided to connect the main lake with a second via an underground tunnel. And at that second lake, a sink-hole was built to provide nearby communities with fresh water. It really was the most surreal sight, with plants growing around the edges and no external infrastructure in sight. I have to say there was also an absence of health and safety barriers and signage. Maybe it’s sort of obvious you shouldn’t swim next to a sink hole where one risks getting sucked into a labyrinth of underground pipes. Interestingly, the place was virtually unknown until about 2016 when the first photos hit the internet.

​From Sabugueiro it was an easy drive to our next destination, Amarante, a town of around 60,000 where Jo spent a year in 1988 as a volunteer physiotherapist at Cerci Amarante, a school for kids with development difficulties. I briefly visited Amarante back in 1990 with Jo, and so 29 years later, here we were again.

My memory of Amarante was of a sleepy, yet picturesque little town with the river Tâmega running through its middle. It has certainly changed since then with a new toll-motorway linking Porto, making what was once a two-hour grind now just a 40-minute drive. There are certainly signs of commercial activity – new apartment blocks, shops and a beautiful hotel on the river-front resurrected from an abandoned sixteenth century manor building. Yet for all that, Amarante still retains its former charm and laid-backness. It really is a beautiful place.

We stayed in quite a grand Airbnb house – formerly the home of a Portuguese diplomat. The estate once stretched many hectares but has since been reduced to around an acre which is planted out in grapes, fruit trees and veges. Portugal is so much cheaper than Spain – this beautiful house cost us not much more than our hostel room in Palma de Mallorca. We felt like Amarante royalty.

​In one of those quirks of travel and circumstance, my old friend Jane Boardman had invited us to her wedding in Monverde Vineyard – just 15 minutes from Amarante. I had worked with Jane at the Electricity Commission in a team set up to drive electricity efficiency across New Zealand homes and businesses. We had kept in touch, including tackling the 160km Lake Taupo bike challenge, and it was so nice to be invited to celebrate her marriage to Andrew Imlach.

Monverde is jaw-dropping. It’s kind of out of place in this rural area with its swimming pools, spa, restaurants and luxury accommodation. Not that we were complaining of course. The wedding lasted three days – drinks and dinner in the vineyard on the first night, the wedding ceremony and formal dinner on day two with the traditional barbecue after-match on day three. It was just amazing, and we felt grateful to be invited. 

​The remainder of our time in Amarante was spent wandering the streets, walking an abandoned railway track in the country, going to the market and catching up with old friends. Thirty years ago, Jolanda worked at Cerci with a lady called Suzy and so it was special they could re-connect. The three of us joined Suzy’s family for dinner at their place – which we later found out was also a birthday party for Suzy’s twenty-five-year-old son. 

​After nine days in Amarante we journeyed to the city of Porto, located on the Douro River and home to many of Portugal’s port wine companies. We organised a basic but nice Airbnb apartment overlooking the river – only to find out that a major concert was planned for both evenings of our stay – about 500m away. Well that was an experience  . . . 

Porto is a magical city. Full of history and quirkiness. We visited the São Bento railway station which boasts some 20,000 azulejos (tiles) depicting Portugal’s past. Jo showed us the coffee shop and hotel she once frequented – the former now having turned into a MacDonalds. The highlight though was a visit to Lavaria Lello – Porto’s famous bookshop which was supposedly used as inspiration by JK Rowling when developing the Harry Potter stories. The shop was sumptuous (I can’t think of a better word) with a very Harry Potter like staircase ascending to the second floor. The shop is so popular it costs five euros just to visit – imagine having a queue of people outside your business all day willing to pay for the privilege of simply looking . . . !

​My time in Portugal has come to an end and for the next three weeks, Jo, Danielle and I part ways. Jo and Danielle staying in Portugal to attend and volunteer at a yoga retreat while I head off to the Lake District to write and continue my online studies to hopefully become a life coach . . .