Day Seven–Viking Octantis

by | Oct 5, 2026 | Uncategorized

It is not often that we board a new kind of ship. We took our first ocean cruise in 1999 and our first river cruise in 2021. Since then, we've sailed on all kinds of ships, from small riverboats (American Cruise Line, with fewer than 200 passengers) to big ships (Royal Caribbean’s Allure of the Seas, with 6,500+ passengers). During that time, we have sailed on three basic types of ship: ocean, river, and just once on an expedition-type ship (Celebrity’s Flora in the Galapagos). So, when considering this Great Lakes Cruise, one of the big selling points was the chance to sail on an expedition ship again. And I have to say that so far, we are loving Viking Octantis.

If you aren’t a cruise fan, you may find this entire post a snooze. So I won’t blame you if you skip this one. Just sayin’. Come back tomorrow for a report on our last day in Milwaukee while onboard the ship. But if you are even a little interested in what I think is the most beautiful and best-designed ship we have ever sailed on, then by all means read on.

A few ship facts:

  • Octantis accommodates a maximum of 374 guests. Some ships show different numbers depending on how many people are in a stateroom, but since Octantis does not allow children under 18, it limits each stateroom to a maximum of two people, even the biggest suites.
  • Octantis is very thin, only 77 feet across. By contrast, Celebrity Solstice, which we sailed on to Alaska in June, is 121 feet across. On a ship, that makes a difference. In a few days, we will sail through the Welland Canal, which will take the ship to Toronto, then on to Montreal, Québec City, and out to the Atlantic. A large cruise ship could not do that.
  • Octantis is four years old. That’s new by ship standards. And she is going into dry dock to keep her that new in just a month or so.
  • She has only seven decks (really eight, but the top deck is crew-only), so it is easy to go up and down.

Enough about facts and figures. Let’s look at the ship from the top down. Of course, her photo is at the top of this page. I took this yesterday when we stopped on Mackinac Island in upper Michigan. She was anchored just offshore, and I had to walk quite a ways to get this shot, so I hope you appreciate it ? 

Deck 6

As you can see from the deck diagram above, Deck 6 is pretty much an open deck. Lots of space to sit and catch some sun, or a great place to take photos. We were up there as we sailed out of Milwaukee. I should add that we were completely alone. Most people had gone to the bow for a sail-away celebration with live music and drinks, but we just wanted the photos, so the six of us were all by our lonesomes up there. Also, on Deck 6 are the BIG suites. The Owner’s Suite you see on the deck plan is more than 700 square feet and has its own private garden area. Seriously. The other suites on that deck are all over 500 square feet. I should point out that Octantis has no verandas/balconies. That would have made her too wide. Instead, you have large windows that open and take up almost the entire width of the stateroom. More about that below when we show you our stateroom.

Deck 5

This deck is completely public. No staterooms. From the front of the ship, my favorite place to sit while writing is the Explorer’s Lounge. Then you run into The Library, followed by The Living Room, a very nice and intimate meeting space, much like your living room at home. It is on two decks (4 and 5), and I am sitting in it right now as I write this. On the starboard side of the ship, you reach Mamsen’s next. This is one of my favorite places to eat breakfast. But I'll talk more about the food later, at the end of the cruise, in my roundup.

Moving aft, you run into the ship’s main restaurant, the World Cafe. Long-time cruisers may be surprised to learn that Octantis and her sister ship Polaris have no main dining room. We'll get to two specialty restaurants below, but the main place to eat is the World Cafe buffet. As I said, more about the food later on, but suffice it to say, it is an amazing buffet. An absolute plethora of choices.

At the aft end of the ship on deck five is the Aquavit Terrace, a very nice bar area that serves The Pools. They are interesting. When I say “The Pools,” you might think of more than one big swimming pool that you would find on a big cruise ship. There are three small ones (about the size of a large hot tub), and each is a different temperature. One is warm, one is cooler, and one is downright cold. Check out the photos; the pictures and captions explain everything.

Deck 4

Our stateroom is on deck four. The entire deck, except the very front, is staterooms. On deck four, there is also the lower level of the Explorer’s Lounge and a launderette. More about our stateroom below. Decks two, three and four all have launderettes (six washers/six dryers and an ironing board—this is crazy for a ship of 374 people when the Ocean ships have three washer/dryers for almost 1,000).Not only that but suites get free laundry done for them. 

Deck 3

Much like decks two and four, this deck is mostly staterooms, but it also has two interesting features. At the very front of the deck, you will find The Bow. Every ship has a bow. It’s the front of the ship. But on most ocean cruise ships, it is not always accessible. Usually it’s reserved for special occasions, like going through the Panama Canal or a glacier day in Alaska. But on Octantis, The Bow is always open. And right behind it is a really cool (or should I say warm) spot called The Shelter. This is mostly for those who go up on The Bow to look at the scenery and then need a place to get warm. Since this ship sails the Arctic in the summer and the Antarctic in the winter, this comes in handy. It’s a cool space—photos below. Midships is a tiny shop that sells Viking-branded merchandise, as well as the office of the “Travel Consultant,” who sells future cruises. I should add that this is the ONLY place on board where you can buy anything. Something I truly appreciate.

At the aft end of deck three is the upper entrance to the Aula. The Aula is the ship’s “theater.” I put that in quotes because there really aren’t any shows. And that’s OK because this is an expedition ship. Instead, there are scientific talks, port presentations and discussions of shore excursions. The room is amazing, with a huge screen that comes down from the ceiling in a most unusual way. When the screen is not down, the room is completely glass-enclosed, and the views are amazing. This is probably much more impressive in the Arctic or Antarctic. Here on the Great Lakes, we just see water. Lots of water. The Aula is two decks high, so you can enter either from deck three or deck two.

Deck 2

This deck is about half staterooms (forward) and half public (midships to aft). After the staterooms at the front, you run into Expedition Central, which focuses on shore excursions and expeditions off the ship. There is also a lot of science going on there, and they hold small-group talks from time to time. Then come the lifeboats (there are four lifeboats, and they each hold 160 people). Since there are 374 passengers and 260 crew members, they can easily accommodate everyone, and they are also used as tenders. I must say, they are the nicest tenders we have ever been on. So clean you could eat off the deck. Impressive.

Behind the lifeboat area are the spa and fitness centers. The spa has all the usual indoor pool amenities, including steam rooms, a snow shower room, saunas, and an indoor pool. There is NO CHARGE to use any of this. There is also a full-service spa where you can get anything from a haircut to a full-body massage. Past the spa is the lower level of The Aula, and beyond that is a deck area called the Finse Terrace. Just a nice place to relax outdoors, looking at the ship’s wake.

Deck 1

This is about half a service deck, which means that area is used for service and crew quarters. At the front of the ship is a small lounge called The Hide. It is called that because you can hide there and no one will find you. Seriously, it is very hard to find. There is only one way down there from deck two, and once you are down there, you are not sure where it is. There is a huge door that looks like it goes into a vault. It’s a cool space, and you can lean out over the windows to look down into the sea. They also use it at night for Expedition Tales, where different members of the Expedition Team tell stories of their adventures.

Midships on Deck 1 are the two specialty restaurants. One is Manfredi’s (an Italian-themed dining room), and the other is The Restaurant, which serves food similar to what you would find in the main dining room of most cruise ships. You need reservations for both of these venues, but eating there is free. We snagged two reservations for each, and at this point we have been to both once. We will go back to The Restaurant in a few nights, but after our experience at Manfredi’s we have decided to skip our other visit. More about that when I write about the food.

Then, all the way at the back of the ship, are The Laboratory and The Hanger. I have not seen them yet, as they are only open during presentations. But they both relate to the expedition side of things. The Hanger houses the ship’s Zodiac fleet, two Special Operations Boats, and two six-man submarines. Yes, submarines. I hope to include photos of these in a couple of days.

Deck A

This is about 90% of the service area. The medical team is stationed at the infirmary and on the lower level of The Hangar. This is also where you board tenders for excursions. Because we visit so many small ports, all our stops except Detroit are tender ports. That means we board a tender (lifeboat) and it takes us to shore.

Our Stateroom

We splurged on this trip and booked a Nordic Junior Suite. It is a really nice stateroom. As far as I am concerned, Viking’s ship and stateroom design are so far ahead of everyone else’s that it’s just not fair. The only comparable stateroom to what we have experienced with Viking is Celebrity’s Flora. That’s it. Below are some photos and above is a floor plan. The floor plan is a little off because they removed the table and replaced it with a desk, which makes more sense. It is a beautiful and very functional room, and I will say more in the photo captions.

If your ship doesn't come in, swim out to it.  —Jonathan Winters

 

The October Bunch Ride Again

by | Sep 23, 2026 | Uncategorized

Not sure if you remember this, but we have a group of six people who travel every October. We call ourselves the October Bunch. We have traveled together every October since 2023, when we sailed on Oceania’s Vista from Montreal to Miami. Since then, we have done river cruises on both the Douro in Portugal and the Columbia River. And since it is almost October, we are off to sail again with the Bunch.

The October Bunch includes me, Kathleen, my brother Steve (of the famous Steve test of restaurants), my sister-in-law Jamie, and our incredible Florida friends Mike and Cathy. Kathleen and I have been traveling with Mike since 2005, and I consider him one of my two best friends in the world.

This year, our trip will start in Chicago this Saturday, and we will spend four days touring the city. We haven’t been there together since 2013. (I was back in 2014 to deal with my youngest brother’s death, but that doesn’t count as a city visit. Jamie and Steve have been there most recently, and our other two Bunchers haven’t been there for more than 25 years.)This should be fun.

We are in Chicago from Saturday afternoon until Wednesday morning, when we rent a car and drive north to the home of cheese and beer—Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I am pretty sure none of us have been there before. We stay two nights at a really cool hotel (which you will see when we get there). Then, on Friday morning, we board the Viking Octantis for a seven-night cruise that takes us to five of the six Great Lakes (we don’t get to Superior).

We are very excited about the cruise because, after all our years of cruising, this is an entirely new kind of ship we have never been on before. In fact, as cruise ships go, only two like it exist in the world: Octantis and her sister ship, Polaris. Octantis holds only 374 passengers in 187 staterooms, so it is much smaller than a Viking Ocean ship and larger than a Viking River boat.

As an expedition ship, she spends most of the year in either the Arctic or the Antarctic. On the way between her two main destinations, she visits the Great Lakes and the Caribbean. This gives us a chance to check her out. She has a lot of very cool gear, including Special Operations Boats for exploring, Zodiacs, and even two six-man submarines (John and Paul). The ship has a scientific lab for oceanic exploration.

You can see our route at the top of this page. We love where this cruise ends… when we sail into Lake Ontario (NOT Lake America) and disembark in Toronto, one of our favorite cities. We will spend the night so we can see our good friends Tim and Perry. It’s been way too long since we last saw them.

That’s the coming two weeks. I will be blogging away, and as always, I will have photos. I hope to use what I learned in Belgium two weeks ago on this trip.

“An account of an expedition is not a novel. Therefore, an authentic account can never be given, let alone written down by someone who was not present.”    —Reinhold Messner

 

Once again…Let Me Sum Up

by | Nov 5, 2024 | Uncategorized

Whew! We are home, but to be honest, I am still having a hard time remembering what day it is. Hopefully, I will get over that soon. Jet lag is pretty much over, but real life is intruding into my travel life. It’s so much fun (sarcasm here) getting home to more than 200 emails I had been just throwing into a folder in Mail to be read when we were home. Now, I have to read them and respond to them. I want to go on vacation again.

Our trip home was pretty decent. The airports got the wheelchair stuff for Kathleen correct this time. British Airways surprised us with two decent Indian meals on two flights. We stayed overnight at a Terminal 5 hotel (Sofitel) and found that we liked the Terminal 3 hotel (Hilton Garden Inn) we had stayed in last June a lot better. Our flight was on time, our luggage showed up quickly, we looked at the camera in passport control, and we were out of there in less than 15 minutes from when we got off the plane. Our Welcome Pickups guy grabbed us, and with the light traffic after 7:00, we were home in no time. Kathleen was off to bed. I got the mail, watched the Dodgers win the World Series and then hit the hay. A good end to a great trip.

Madrid

Going back to the very beginning, we liked Madrid a lot. We stayed at the Hotel Preciados in downtown. As you may recall, we toured for three full days: one in Toledo (our best day), one in Segovia (another great day), and one in Madrid itself, which could have been better. Read all about those in previous posts. The summary of Madrid was that we had a great time, and we’ve now been there and done that. It’s now crossed off our list, and we won’t be going back. A nice city, but it was no Edinburgh or Amsterdam for us—but we are glad we visited once.

Lisbon with Viking

The next stop was Lisbon before our Douro River cruise. As soon as we got there, we met Marianne, who was amazing. She was not only the person directing our pre-cruise stay in Lisbon but also the Program Director on our entire river cruise. She proved to be one of the best parts of the whole 10 days we spent with Viking. Her laugh, her sense of humor and the fact that she was always UP and always FUN made her someone we will remember for quite a while. More about Marianne later.

Sadly, as you have read, when we were touring Lisbon with Viking, Fatima, the worst guide I have ever experienced, ruined the entire experience for me. Not only would she not shut up, but she insulted me, too.

Our Douro River Cruise

OK, this is what you have been waiting for—how was the cruise? In a quick word, it was awesome. We love river cruising. We really didn’t discover how much we liked it with our Christmas Market cruise on the Danube last winter because it was so darned cold. So, if you have done a Christmas Market cruise, go back and do a warm weather cruise like the Douro and see what you missed.

One of my absolute favorite things about this cruise was seeing the cruise. By that, I mean that on our Danube cruise, most of the movement on the river was accomplished either at night when we were asleep or during the day when we were on an excursion. My absolute favorite part of our Douro River cruise was sailing on the river. I think I mentioned in a previous post that I could do this cruise again and never get off the ship. Seriously, my favorite days were the ones where we spent the majority of the time sailing on the river and watching Portugal go by.

Shore Excursions

Don’t get me wrong, the shore excursions were just fine. If I had to rate them, I would put Salamanca, Spain as #1 because it was like going back to what Europe used to be in the early 2,000s before over-tourism started. I also enjoyed the short visit to Castelo Rodrigo. I mean, the castle was nice, but the best part was that it was brief. We sailed most of the day and then did about a three-hour excursion to a somewhat interesting place. Probably my third favorite was the second half of our first day when we visited the Mateus Palace. What snoozer. But the second half of the day was to visit the Sandeman winery, where they make their wonderful port wine, and be shown around by a guide who really knew what she was talking about and made the tour fun. That was it. The rest of the days, the excursion was either blah (Favios), or we didn’t go (Lamego).

The ship/boat

I really have yet to spend any time discussing the ship itself. Unlike the Viking Longship, we sailed on the Danube, the Douro River boats (you can put a boat on a ship, but you can’t put a ship on a boat, and I think you could put a Douro River boat on a big ocean-going vessel) are smaller due to the smaller locks they must get through. So, instead of carrying up to 190 passengers like the Danube boats do, the Douro River boats carry a maximum of 106, and ours only had 99. That makes so much difference. It’s much more intimate. You get to know most of the crew because there are only 36 of them. And they all do all sorts of jobs. One of our favorite people onboard was Mitra. His official title (on his name tag) said, “Bar Chef.” He was the best bartender on board, and he really kept things going in the lounge. But he was also the sommelier in the dining room and helped out waiting on tables or restocking the buffet as well. Our favorite server in the dining room, Ovi, not only served us dinner but also was the crew member who walked us to our stateroom on embarkation to show us how everything worked. She often worked in the lounge serving drinks. The lady got around.

Embarkation/Disembarkation

Speaking of embarkation…those of you who have suffered through a three-hour embarkation as we did in May 2023 to get on Koningsdam in Vancouver or anything like it will LOVE embarkation on a river cruise. Especially this one. Since we had spent two days with Viking in Lisbon before we boarded the boat, they had everyone on one of four “luxury motor coaches,” and they staggered their morning departures, which meant that each of the “luxury motor coaches” made it to the ship about 15 to 20 minutes apart. So when we arrived, we went up the gangway, and they asked us our names. We were escorted (us by Ovi) to our stateroom, and our luggage arrived minutes later.

Disembarkation was just as efficient. We were given a list of when every stateroom would be getting off (we had been asked in advance how we would be leaving the ship) and told to put our big luggage out in the hallway outside our rooms 15 minutes before we would get off. Then, at our appointed time, we got up and got off. Simple as that. It really pays to be on a smaller boat.

Our stateroom

Our stateroom was a suite. There, I said it. We splurged and booked a suite. It wasn’t that much more, but it got us some things we really wanted. The first was an actual extra room. We had both a living room and a bedroom. Not to mention a walk-in closet and a smallish bath (smaller than on our Danube cruise). So when I would wake up really early, I could sit in the living room and work on photos or on a new post without waking up Kathleen or needing to get completely dressed and go to the lounge.

The other reason we LOVED this suite was…free laundry. Yes, folks, we could send out as much laundry as we wanted, and it was included. On our Danube cruise, we had sent out a few things because we had already been in Lisbon for a few days, and then we did Prague and Nuremberg as a pre-cruise extension, so when we got on, we needed to have some things washed. But the prices were OFF THE CHARTS! As I recall, I got one pair of jeans, two pairs of socks, and two shirts, and it cost me $20. On Viking Torgil, we got to the ship with lots of dirty laundry from four days in Madrid, two nights in Lisbon and a single suitcase each. We immediately sent out all our dirty laundry (they gave us two really nice-sized bags to send it out in) and had it back early the next day. From that point on, I pretty much sent out laundry every day. Whatever I wore the day before, send it out! And it got to the point where it would come back on the same day.

If you would like to see photos of the suite, you may have to wait. I suddenly realized when we got home that I had never really taken any pictures of the suite. I had a couple (the bedroom and bathroom) but missed the living room. But never fear; you will be able to see a whole bunch soon because Mike and Cathy had the same type of suite we did, and Mike always does an awesome job of taking ship/boat/stateroom photos. His review of the cruise with all those photos should be out soon (HEY MIKE—is the review done yet? ?). When it is done, I will post about it, and you can find it right here at www.thepreismans.com. In the meantime, here are a few photos I took of our room.

The bedroom.
The bathroom
The shower. Smaller than on their ocean ships.
Our walk in closet

The Food

Everyone wants to know about the food on a cruise. We have found that Viking does a “fine” job of food on its ocean and river cruises. By that, we mean we like the food. It’s not gourmet, and it doesn’t hold a candle to Oceania. But our most memorable meals on this trip came when we were off the boat (lunch in Toledo and lunch in Cascais come to mind).

On board Viking Torgil, we had a wonderful British chef named Michael Bee Venet. I say he is wonderful less for his culinary skills than for his wonderful personality. Every night, he would preview the meal at our pre-dinner destination talk. He was hilarious. He also regularly stopped by everyone’s table. At breakfast, he would often come around with a special baked good and serve it to us himself.

But we thought his food was oversalted. Sometimes, it was just finishing salt. Some soups were fine when you got down below the surface, but those first three spoonfuls were very salty. We also thought the food was better at the beginning of the week than at the end. It wasn’t bad, just not as good. On a scale of one to ten, it was an eight when we started and a six when we finished.

By the way, when you take a Douro river cruise, you eat all your meals in the dining room. It is totally casual. I think we only saw anyone in anything dressy twice. OMG— people wore shorts in the dining room. We wore jeans and tennis shoes. On our Danube cruise, there was a small buffet area at the front of the boat, but not on the smaller Douro boat. It was the dining room or hunger.

All in all, the food was good and plentiful, and we had nothing to complain about…or wait! I want to complain about the bread. It was too good. Seriously, it may be the best bread I have had on any cruise. Delicious—and I ate way too much of it. Oh, and there were fewer veggies than we would have liked as well. Kind of like our ocean cruise on Viking Venus in June; there was a lot of red meat, which we try to avoid at home. Here’s a gallery of some dishes we ate on this trip. I will try to tell you where we ate them, but if you like great food, check them out. All were shot with my phone, so feel free to look at them on yours. Remember, you can click them to enlarge them and scroll through. I’ll start with some photos of where we all ate.

At our usual table in the dining room on Torgil.
And all of us at the Fado dinner.
Kathleen and I at Botin Restaurant, the oldest in the world. Opened in 1725.
The gazpacho at Botin
The suckling pig specialty of the house at Botin.
They also did young lamb.
But pretty much everyone had the pig.
Botin had great desserts. Especially this Catalan version of creme brûlée
And some flan for Mike.
While in Madrid, Cathy, Mike and I went to a tapas place one night. They had amazing eggplant.
As well as patatas bravas.
When I Madrid, you have to try churros and chocolate.
One day in Madrid Kathleen and I had this awesome salad for lunch and…
this wafer thin pizza. Salad was great. Pizza was not.
Stuffed peppers in Segovia
I think our best meal was in Toledo. This is my pork. Amazing.
Mike and Steve had the boar cheeks. They raved about it.
But the dessert—manchego cheese cake—was the best of the trip for rme.
They had some interesting deserts.
A pizza we had later in the trip In Salamanca, Spain.
Chorizo on the table in Segovia.
Some really great Segovian chorizo.
As always in Portugal, I ate a lot of octopus.
Lots of octopus. I think I had it at least four times. Probably more.
Of course Cathy had to have a burger. Sometimes you just need a taste of home.
When we stopped for lunch between Lisbon and Porto we got chicken or…
Portugal’s national food—reconstructed cod.
Onboard Mike got the biggest tiger prawns we have seen.
And a nice risotto
Something else we ate on board. I can’t remember what it was but it was good.
A delicious orange cake on Torgil.
And I got a hot dog! It’s a Bob thing. Only he understands.
When we stopped in the Lebanese place in Lisbon, the tabouli was excellent.
At the Fado show we got some decent soup.
My entrée at the Fado show.

I almost forgot the “Steve Test.” For those of you unfamiliar with the Steve Test. I call this the Steve Test because my brother Steve came up with it. I think it’s brilliant. This is the entire test: If you eat in a restaurant while traveling, and if that restaurant is near you once you get home, would you go there again? If it were in your hometown, would we eat there regularly? For this trip, the places that passed the Steve test were Clandestina in Toledo, the Lebanese restaurant behind the TimeOut Market and a few of the meals on Torgil, but the ultimate A+ on the Steve Test went to the Chicken restaurant in Cascais on the day we toured Sintra. I know my brother believes it’s the best chicken he has ever had.

Entertainment

If you have been reading my stuff for a while, you know we have kind of given up on shows. Besides, they really don’t have shows on river cruises. However, they did have some great entertainers come on board while we were in ports, and Mike will have photos of those, I am sure. He can stay up later than we can. But I did want to mention two of the best entertainers I have ever seen on a ship—river or ocean.

The first is not really an entertainer but a server in the restaurant. He was kind of in charge of singing Happy Birthday to anyone celebrating one. He also was a total clown. He has a great voice, but what really makes him GREAT is his face. He can turn it into the absolute funniest looks you have ever seen. Here are a few shots of our buddy Agus doing his thing.

He was singing to a woman who was celebrating her birthday.
See what I mean about his face.
No accompaniment.
He has a thousand of looks.
And is truly an amazing performer and a really nice guy.

He was so special that I am going to try to add a video I took of him. If it works, it’s right here. IT WORKED!

The other amazing performer on the ship was our wonderful, incredible, marvelous, fantastic Program Director, Marianne. We had heard that she was going to sing one night after dinner in the lounge. We were both pretty tired, but I persuaded Kathleen to go, and were we ever glad we did. She was all those adjectives I put up above and more. It might be the best show I have ever seen on any ship or boat. For sure, it was the most fun. And now that I got the Agus video to load, here’s a little bit of Marianne’s show.

Besides being the best Program/Cruise Director we have ever sailed with (35+ cruises), she is one of the nicest and most caring people you will ever meet. We would take a cruise she was on just to sail with her.

To Sum Up

How much did we enjoy this river cruise? For the first time in more than twenty years (since we took our first Panama Canal cruise on Celebrity’s Infinity in 2004), we don’t have an ocean cruise booked, and we don’t think we will take one in the foreseeable future. We have booked a Chobe River cruise in Africa, a Columbia River Cruise, and a Great Lakes cruise, but that’s it. We can’t think of anywhere that big-ship ocean cruises go that we still really want to see. We aren’t saying we wouldn’t go if friends wanted to go together, but we have been there and done that just about everywhere ocean cruises go. I guess we are now river cruise people.

WAIT! I almost forgot the best part of the entire trip—getting to travel once again with Steve, Jamie, Mike and Cathy—our October gang. We will all do it again next October when we cruise the Columbia River between Washington and Oregon.

No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.    —Heraclitus

A Little More of Porto to Ponder

by | Oct 26, 2024 | Uncategorized

The following day, we were up and ready to tour Porto. When we first arrived (six days ago), there was no time to tour the city. It was pretty much getting on the boat, having dinner, going to bed after a long day of touring to get to the boat. So today was our day to tour Porto.

We had a choice of two tours. One was a walking tour of Porto (which we skipped to make Kathleen’s knee happy) and an overview tour on the “luxury motor coach.” We opted for that one. It included more geography but fewer stops and time on the ground. Which for us worked well. Our two scheduled stops were at the Cathedral of Porto (what else?) and at the spot where the Douro River meets the Atlantic Ocean. Both were very scenic. And, of course, I got a lot of photos. It wasn’t a long tour, about three hours total, but we felt we got what we paid for (it was included ?). Here are the photos I took while out and about on the tour. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping. And PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

Early morning just before breakfast.
And now to the cathedral and a statue of Paiva Couceiros, the founder of Porto.
Looking at the Cathedral from the front.
Inside a beautiful church.
The baptismal font.
And more church.
And more church.
And more church.
For an atheist, I sure tour a lot of churches.
Tiles inside the cloisters of the church.
Next to the church was this beautiful building, fully tiled. And another colorful one next to it.
More views from outside the cathedral.
And more.
And a beautiful lady waiting for me.
Our tour guide Claudia.
Everyone is waiting for the bus.
Being watched by Paiva Couceiros.
We reach the sea and the castle that defended Porto.
This is where we saw this strange building. It turned out to be the cruise terminal for ocean ships.
And there were beaches.
With lots of people on them.

After our tour, we returned to the Torgil, where we had a very delicious last lunch. I realize I have not had much to say about the food, the crew, or the boat, but I will get to it in my summary, which I will try to write on our flight or after we get home. So, if that is what you are waiting for, you must hold on a little longer.

After lunch, Kathleen started packing as we would be getting off the boat early the following day. I decided to walk back across the river (on a bridge—I haven’t mastered the whole walking on water thing ?) and hike around Porto before it started raining. This is where I was totally disappointed by both Google Maps and Apple Maps. For me to walk across the river on a bridge, both of them had me crossing from one side to the other on the small foot ferry. I didn’t want to cross the Douro on a boat. I had already been up and down the river so many times on a boat I wanted to walk and get the view from a bridge. But they would NOT give me directions to Porto (while walking) to cross on a bridge. I tried putting in driving, but there are so many one-way streets that it would have taken me an hour to get to the bridge. So I went down to reception on the boat and asked Marianna (our guide for the entire week) if she knew the easiest way to get to the bridge so I could walk across. She has lived in Porto for years and said, “Of course. Just get off the boat, turn left, walk straight down the wharf to the bridge and cross it. OMG, Apple and Google—you couldn’t figure that out???

I had no problems once I got across the bridge and walked up to the top of the stairs leading into the city. I took a bunch of photos, and here they are.  (HEY! I saw you looking at those on your phone—cut that out! ?)

I saw this woman in a window.
There should be a point to the woman but there isn’t. This is her view.
This is her view in a close up.
This is the bridge I crossed that Apple and Google could not find.
Had to go up these stairs.
On the walk down the wharf.
It was quite the climb.
In both directions.
I finally got into the city.
Saw some great buildings.
Some really cool windows in need of sanding and painting.
And more cool streets.
Inside Porto’s major train station there are so many tiles.
This is so typical. These two stood in my way for more than five minutes with each of them trying different poses.
The train station. I love train stations.
Just to prove I was there.
Love the color.
Looking up towards a different cathedral.
A demonstration passing me.
Ran into a police standoff.
Not sure why this guy would not come out but he didn’t look too dangerous.
A cool church messed up by a tarp.
Crazy streets.
They told me there were only five locks on the Douro. I beg to differ.
My last Douro shot of the day.

That about covered our day. I went back on board the boat and packed up everything I could. Then, it was time for the goodbye from the crew cocktail party and our last dinner on board. After that, it was bedtime with an early wake-up as we had to get off the ship to meet our driver/guide, who would take us to Lisbon by 8:30 am the next day.

PS: Sorry for two posts today. Chalk it up to over-tourism. We are in Lisbon today, and I went out to take a walk and scout for things to do. The city is packed like the cans of sardines that Portugal is famous for. I walked up to get a shot of views from the castle, and there was a one-hour and forty-five-minute wait to get tickets—so many people. When I walked down to another viewpoint I had shot from in December, I found hundreds of people and the reason why the place was so crowded. Out in the harbor are two huge cruise ships, each with 4,000+ passengers.  More about that in a couple of days. And yes, I realize I am a kind of a hypocrite for complaining about tourism when I am a tourist  ??.

Touring is hard on the body.  —Eminem

Heading Back Down the Douro

by | Oct 23, 2024 | Uncategorized

When I finished telling you about our visit to Salamanca, I forgot to mention that when we returned to the boat that evening, it had made the turnaround, and we were now heading west again and retracing our steps back to Porto. As I write this to tell you about our day in Favios (pronounced fa v? OOSH), we are already back in Porto and have spent a full day on the river getting here. More about that tomorrow.

Our day after Salamanca was all about stopping in Favios for two things: bread and Muscatel wine. Now I love bread. Always have. But I am not a big fan of Muscatel wine. It’s way too sweet for my tastes. Port is right on the border of sweetness for me. Muscatel goes over the edge. But off we went to try it all out. After a 75-minute ride on our “luxury motor coach,” we found ourselves in the village of Favios. We were met by a very nice young man named Mohammed, who took us to what is best described as a bread demonstration center. There, an older Portuguese woman showed us how she makes bread. It’s not really the making but the dividing it into pieces and then putting it in the oven. We also got to taste the bread (which was nowhere near as good as the bread we have been getting on the ship) and ask questions. There weren’t a lot of questions, so we moved on.

After our bread demo, we headed to the Favios Museum of Bread and Muscatel. Seriously, they have a very well-conceived, four-room museum that is beautifully graphically designed for their village’s two main products. A young lady named Vanessa gave us the tour, and then we were back on the bus to visit a Muscatel winery about three miles away.

To be honest, I am about wineryed out by this point. And since I have no interest in Muscatel tasting, this was kind of a flat stop for me. But others seemed to enjoy it, so no complaints on my part. Besides, it was a quick (less than 30 minutes) stop, and then we were off to lunch at a local winery. Lunch was OK (nothing like we would have had on the ship—but more traditional?), and in a little more than an hour, we were on our way back to the boat. Here are the pictures I took in Favios. If you like bread or wine, these might interest you. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping. And PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

The first thing we saw getting out of the bus was this girl’s school. The boy’s school was at the other end of the block.
Mohammed introduces the baker.
And cuts up the dough.
Mohammed gets excited about the final product.
And the baker puts more in the fire.
Outside on the way to the museum, I got a couple of shots of Favios.
Including this watcher on the balcony. He was keeping an eye on the tourists.
Great streets in Favios.
Vanessa runs the museum.
Some great scenery in wine country.
Dogs were everywhere and allowed to run (and sleep) freely.
Our host at the Muscael winery.
Shows us the steel tanks.
Outside was this great mural of the winery’s founder.
Off to lunch at another winery.
Where the grape vines were changing colors….
….and they had pretty evil looking fountain…
…as well as a very cool pickup truck.
I love old trucks.

After we were back on board, the boat headed down the river through one of the locks the boat had gone through on the way up the river, but most of us had missed it when we were visiting Castela Rodrigo a few days before. That’s one of the best parts of this cruise. If you miss something on the river, they ensure you sail through that part on the way back while you are onboard so you can see it. Took a bunch of photos on that part of the trip as well. You know the drill.

Headed back down I decided to get Kathleen this villa for her birthday.
And of course I love a train so when this multi-colored one went by, you get a photo.
Entering the lock we missed.
The captain ready to guide it in.
It’s going to be a tight squeeze.
We are at the top of the dam and the river is far below us.
Getting shut in.
This is a guillotine lock. That means it goes up and down to let us through.
When it opens and the ship moves under it, you get drenched if you are out in the open.
We have now descended and are making our way out of the lock.
Another Viking boat is coming in to go upriver.
We find ourselves facing two bridges.
And pass another boat before we make a quick stop….
at Régua to pick up folks who went on an optional excursion.
Five of our group went off to find a Pharmacia where we could get cold meds. On the way, I saw these doors.
And found my way back to the ship.

That about covers our day in Favios. For a glimpse of what is yet to come, tomorrow is all about being on the river because we skipped the excursion (it was more monasteries and cathedrals) and had a glorious sunny day sailing west on the Douro into Porto. See you then.

Wine hath drowned more men than the sea.   —Thomas Fuller