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Portugal Old, New and Undiscovered
Lonnie Schlein for The New York Times
The guest house at Quinta do Vallado, overlooking one of the property’s many vineyards.
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CloseLinkedinDiggFacebookMixxMySpaceYahoo! BuzzPermalink By FRANK BRUNI
Published: May 30, 2010
“SEE these olive trees?” said Celso Pereira as his pickup truck slalomed down a road flanked by thousands of them, their pale, pointy leaves glistening faintly, their limbs wretched and magnificent with age. “They make the most wonderful olive oil.”
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Oporto Travel Guide
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The Douro Winemaking Region
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Portugal “And those orange trees?” he added, pointing to a small grove. They brimmed with bright, ripening fruit. “The oranges are amazing.”
The tiny restaurant ahead? “Phenomenal,” he said. The dark soil in the vineyard to the left? Incomparable. It wasn’t thickly accented English he spoke so much as the language of local pride — exultant and, truth be told, hyperbolic. I had tasted the olive oil: lovely, not life-changing. And the oranges: perfectly fine.
But there was one soaring superlative with which I couldn’t quibble. “This drive,” he said as the truck dropped like a roller coaster into the valley below. “It is the most beautiful, no?”
Yes. Oh yes. And that heady conviction had only a little to do with the wines that Mr. Pereira, a vintner in this enchanted region of northern Portugal, had just had me sample. All around us mountains undulated into the distance. The slopes in the foreground were a precipitous, mesmerizing patchwork of greens, reds, browns and grays, the earth alternately craggy and lush, terraced and cleanly diagonal, as if some grand hand had fashioned it into a tutorial on all that nature and agriculture can do.
And at the base of those slopes: a ribbon of water, playing peek-a-boo as it twisted into and out of view. This was the Douro River, the cause and compass of my trip.
I had been drawn to Portugal by word of how splendid the area around the Douro is. It is from the banks of the Douro that the sublime city of Oporto rises. It is along the Douro that a disproportionate share of Portugal’s most respected wine producers fuss over their grapes.
And it was my hope that by tracing the river from Oporto toward Spain, I might construct my favorite kind of vacation, one that mingles — within a few days and a few hours of driving — some time in an old, architecturally distinguished city with even more time in gorgeous countryside, all punctuated by big, slow, boozy meals. That’s my Italy, my France, my Spain. I wanted to make it my Portugal, too.
In fact Portugal has advantages over its more celebrated neighbors. It is appreciably less expensive, especially now, given its economic woes, which sometimes earn it mention in the same paragraph, or even sentence, as Greece. Those troubles make its outreach to tourists more ardent than ever, an effort manifest in new hotels and a fancier class of restaurants throughout the area around the Douro, where a growing tourism infrastructure has been spurred by closer international attention to Douro wines and winemakers.
What’s more, you can experience Portugal without excessive buildup and, well, bullying. Tell your friends that you’re bound for Italy and out pour the recommendations, myriad and insistent: you must, you must, you must. Tell them you’re going to Portugal and they are as likely as not stumped. You can discover this country on your own, fashion it for yourself. And in Portugal you encounter a pride of place, like Mr. Pereira’s, that doesn’t bleed into the kind of arrogance it can in a country over which the whole world fawns. Portugal’s self-regard is defensive, pleading, sweet.
I FIRST connected with the Douro in Oporto. If you’ve never been to this city and haven’t read up on it you know it mainly as the tipsy mother lode of its namesake product, port, exported to any and every country with an appreciation of fortified wine. You’re reminded of this by the gigantic signs in Vila Nova de Gaia, on the opposite side of the Douro from Oporto, that advertise some of the most prolific local producers.
But you can be indifferent to port and still thrill to Oporto, with its high bridges, its tall hills and the succinct labyrinth of narrow, cobbled streets in its scruffy old heart, snug against the river.
It’s a city of bold, sudden architectural contrasts, in which two or three blocks collapse two or three centuries. On my first afternoon there, near the summit of the city, I traced the edges of Praça da Liberdade, marveling over the way its Beaux-Arts flourishes recall Paris at its prettiest. Thirty minutes later and less than a half mile down the sharply graded descent toward the river, I was staring at the rococo facade of the Igreja da Misericórdia, which dates to the 16th century. It put me in mind of Rome.
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Portugal Old, New and Undiscovered
Lonnie Schlein for The New York Times
The guest house at Quinta do Vallado, overlooking one of the property’s many vineyards.
Sign In to E-Mail
Single Page
Reprints
Share
CloseLinkedinDiggFacebookMixxMySpaceYahoo! BuzzPermalink By FRANK BRUNI
Published: May 30, 2010
“SEE these olive trees?” said Celso Pereira as his pickup truck slalomed down a road flanked by thousands of them, their pale, pointy leaves glistening faintly, their limbs wretched and magnificent with age. “They make the most wonderful olive oil.”
Skip to next paragraph
Oporto Travel Guide
Where to Stay
Where to Eat
What to Do
Go to the Oporto Travel Guide »
Multimedia
Slide Show
The Douro Winemaking Region
Map
Portugal “And those orange trees?” he added, pointing to a small grove. They brimmed with bright, ripening fruit. “The oranges are amazing.”
The tiny restaurant ahead? “Phenomenal,” he said. The dark soil in the vineyard to the left? Incomparable. It wasn’t thickly accented English he spoke so much as the language of local pride — exultant and, truth be told, hyperbolic. I had tasted the olive oil: lovely, not life-changing. And the oranges: perfectly fine.
But there was one soaring superlative with which I couldn’t quibble. “This drive,” he said as the truck dropped like a roller coaster into the valley below. “It is the most beautiful, no?”
Yes. Oh yes. And that heady conviction had only a little to do with the wines that Mr. Pereira, a vintner in this enchanted region of northern Portugal, had just had me sample. All around us mountains undulated into the distance. The slopes in the foreground were a precipitous, mesmerizing patchwork of greens, reds, browns and grays, the earth alternately craggy and lush, terraced and cleanly diagonal, as if some grand hand had fashioned it into a tutorial on all that nature and agriculture can do.
And at the base of those slopes: a ribbon of water, playing peek-a-boo as it twisted into and out of view. This was the Douro River, the cause and compass of my trip.
I had been drawn to Portugal by word of how splendid the area around the Douro is. It is from the banks of the Douro that the sublime city of Oporto rises. It is along the Douro that a disproportionate share of Portugal’s most respected wine producers fuss over their grapes.
And it was my hope that by tracing the river from Oporto toward Spain, I might construct my favorite kind of vacation, one that mingles — within a few days and a few hours of driving — some time in an old, architecturally distinguished city with even more time in gorgeous countryside, all punctuated by big, slow, boozy meals. That’s my Italy, my France, my Spain. I wanted to make it my Portugal, too.
In fact Portugal has advantages over its more celebrated neighbors. It is appreciably less expensive, especially now, given its economic woes, which sometimes earn it mention in the same paragraph, or even sentence, as Greece. Those troubles make its outreach to tourists more ardent than ever, an effort manifest in new hotels and a fancier class of restaurants throughout the area around the Douro, where a growing tourism infrastructure has been spurred by closer international attention to Douro wines and winemakers.
What’s more, you can experience Portugal without excessive buildup and, well, bullying. Tell your friends that you’re bound for Italy and out pour the recommendations, myriad and insistent: you must, you must, you must. Tell them you’re going to Portugal and they are as likely as not stumped. You can discover this country on your own, fashion it for yourself. And in Portugal you encounter a pride of place, like Mr. Pereira’s, that doesn’t bleed into the kind of arrogance it can in a country over which the whole world fawns. Portugal’s self-regard is defensive, pleading, sweet.
I FIRST connected with the Douro in Oporto. If you’ve never been to this city and haven’t read up on it you know it mainly as the tipsy mother lode of its namesake product, port, exported to any and every country with an appreciation of fortified wine. You’re reminded of this by the gigantic signs in Vila Nova de Gaia, on the opposite side of the Douro from Oporto, that advertise some of the most prolific local producers.
But you can be indifferent to port and still thrill to Oporto, with its high bridges, its tall hills and the succinct labyrinth of narrow, cobbled streets in its scruffy old heart, snug against the river.
It’s a city of bold, sudden architectural contrasts, in which two or three blocks collapse two or three centuries. On my first afternoon there, near the summit of the city, I traced the edges of Praça da Liberdade, marveling over the way its Beaux-Arts flourishes recall Paris at its prettiest. Thirty minutes later and less than a half mile down the sharply graded descent toward the river, I was staring at the rococo facade of the Igreja da Misericórdia, which dates to the 16th century. It put me in mind of Rome.
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