We had a nice sleep in the small hotel room last night. Waking up was made easier by dad telling us that the chickens nearly died from lack of food. Unfortunately breakfast wasn’t left out for us (we were told the included self serve breakfast would be left out in the kitchen), so we waited ages as an incredibly slow, tired, and rotund man got each ingredient out over the course of 45 minutes.
We left a half hour late at 7:30, descending the frightful cobblestone hill to the Douro River and then had a breeze of a cycle. The road was smooth. Cars were patient. It rained, but Viki handles the rain incredibly well. We had a nice pastry and coffee stop at 27km for only €4. And we arrived at our fancy hotel, the Octant Hotel Douro at 11:30am, well before our 3pm check in time.
The room wasn’t ready yet, but we were allowed to use the pool and spa and shower while we waited, so went to the incredible infinity pool and I swam while Viki read. By 2pm our room was ready, but it faced the parking lot, and after a little negotiation, we eventually got upgraded to a beautiful river view room. There was champagne and strawberries with chocolate waiting for us and we had that along with our sandwiches. We’ll end up having biked 60km or so of hilly terrain out of our way to be here and Viki says it was so worth it.
There was also a wine tasting that was supposed to be included, that ended up also getting upgraded for free (otherwise €45 per person). We had a face off of 6 wines from thr Douro region, 3 from Portugal and 3 from Spain and had good conversation with three at our table from Mexico City – Santiago, Anwar, and Bernard, and a couple from Brazil – Martin and Carolina. We had a simple dinner of pizza and a burger from the hotel restaurant (they had a wood fired pizza oven) and now we’re off to bed, in a positively beautiful setting.
