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Day 1 Porto – Dinner

Day 1

Day 1.- We encourage you to come a few days early to enjoy Portugal before our Expedition. Some of you may want to join our partner Portugal Green Walks for one of their extensive list of walks (www.portugalgreenwalks.com). Our hotel for this first night in Porto is the Hotel Moov Porto Centro. At 3 pm, in the hotel breakfast room, you will meet your Douro Kayak guide and receive a detailed explanation of the expedition. At 4 pm a local guide we take you on a 3-hour walking tour of the Centre of Porto declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We’ll end our first night with dinner in a typical Porto restaurant.

Day 3 Foz do Sabor – Mos 7.6 miles 12.231 Km

Today we will have our first paddle on the wonderful Douro River. We’ll get an early start to avoid midday headwinds. Today our journey will take us through one of the most beautiful and isolated parts of the river. Along the way, we’ll stop a couple of times for a brief swim. Our lunch will be a picnic at our take-out for the day.  After lunch, we will drive to our lodgings where we’ll spend two blissful nights. In the afternoon we will have a sauna, swim in the pool and maybe take a 3 k. walk on a 3000-year-old roman road. Dinner will be nearby.

Day 2 Porto – Pocinho – Foz Coa

After an early breakfast today, our adventure really begins with a train ride on the Linha do Douro. (www.roughguides.com/destinations/europe/portugal/porto-rio-douro/douro/linha-douro-portugals-best-train-ride) We’ll meet at the Sao Bento train station at 09:00, so we have time to look again at the wonderful azulejos which are hand-painted tile scenes of historical events on the upper Douro. At 09:10, we’ll board our train with Pocinho as our destination. Upon arriving at the end of the line in Pocinho at 12:41, we will have lunch at a family-run restaurant in Pocinho and then go to the Prehistoric Rock Art Museum  https://www.arte-coa.pt/  Rock art is mankind’s oldest graphic memory, and the Foz Coa Valley is a Rock Art World Heritage Site. The view from the Museum alone is worth the visit. Tonight we will stay in a beautiful working wine estate where we will also have dinner.

Day 4 Mos – Ferradosa 7.4 Miles 12.310 Km

Today we have another beautiful and relaxing day. After breakfast, we paddle down the river for about 2 miles to the most famous Quinta on the river. (http://www.quintadovesuvio.com) The history of port wine and the Douro River would be very different without the Quinta da Vesúvio. Under a very special authorization, we will visit the grounds and the garden and learn more about winemaking and the history of the Upper Douro. The Symington family owns this Quinta and many others in the Upper Douro, and here they are producing some of their finest wine.  After the brief visit, we’ll return to our kayaks to paddle past the Quinta de Vargelas to Ferradosa. At take-out, we will have another wonderful picnic.  After lunch, we'll return to Bairro Casal with a stop to visit an 8th-century castle. Dinner will be nearby.

Day 5 Ferradosa – Tua 7.7 Miles 12.400 Km

The paddle today will not be forgotten. The Valeira Cataract was the greatest obstacle to navigation on the Douro River till the first great hydraulic project was carried out between 1780 and 1791. This project was to demolish the falls, and they succeeded in making it possible to navigate up the Douro to the border with Spain. This made it possible for an important development of the wine industry and, in fact was the reason for the project. This incredible project didn’t eliminate the dangers of the river, it only made it possible to pass, but still with great risk. A point worth mentioning is that the wine casks were only half filled, so when a boat hit the rocks, the wine casks would float and be saved. The man who made the first detailed map of the Douro, Baron Forrester, drowned in this place 70 years after it was demolished.

All five locks on the Douro River are the same size and allow boats up to 272 ft. in length, 37 ft. beam, and a draft of 12.5 ft. Today we will pass this (2.8 miles from Sao Xisto 1.5 hr.) Valeira Gorge via a lock that will lower us 108 ft. This is one of the most impressive locks in the world, and it’s part of the Valeira Dam, which was finished in 1975. In the lock, we will be lowered 108 ft. to continue our journey down the river. Going through a lock in a kayak for the first time is an interesting experience, and you´ll enjoy it, I’m sure.

After the lock, we´ll paddle to the small village of Tua. Here we'll first have a picnic lunch and after lunch we'll go to our hotel where we'll relax and maybe swim in the pool before we have dinner. 

Day 6 Tua – Pinhao – Folgosa – Peso da Regua 7.7 Miles 12.400 Km

This is our last day on the river and we’ll again be off to an early start. We’ll paddle to Pinhao, which is an important wine-producing center. Today you will be paddling past some of the finest wine estates along the river. At Pinhao, we’ll takeout and have lunch. After lunch we’ll go to the train station where you will see the very fine ceramic tile work and take the train back to Porto or optionally stop off in Peso da Regua, visit the Douro Museum and stay the night in Peso to catch the next morning train to Porto. An Important note: Our itinerary is always subject to change due to the weather or other unforeseen situations requiring changes. Our objective is to spend our six fully enjoyable days on the river and not be stressed by rigid planning.

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