Category: Off to Europe?

For those who don’t visit establishments that make and sell bottles of fermented grape juice, let me explain that many (if not most) wineries have wine clubs.  Membership generally requires one to purchase a set number of bottles annually at a discount price.

Occasionally, wine club membership comes with spectacular fringe benefits.  A California winery to which Dianne’s brother belonged, for example, once hosted a Moody Blues concert with wine club participants having an opportunity to dine with members of the band.  Dianne was exceedingly envious.

Now that we live in Colorado wine country, my lovely wife joined the wine club at Bookcliff Vineyards, which is located 26 miles away in Palisade. 

Bookcliff will probably never have the members of the Moody Blues over for dinner, but under the heading of “fringe benefits” this year the winery sponsored a cruise up the Douro River in Portugal, which was exclusively for club members like us.

Unlike Viking river cruises, which have up to 190 passengers onboard, the Bookcliff cruise would be on a smaller vessel once used as part of Queen Liz’s Diamond Jubilee celebration. 

The Spirit of Chartwell carries only 30 passengers in surroundings fit enough for British royalty, and the trip cost was reasonable (less than Viking).

While it would mean postponing our sorta-planned trip to Australia, we decided the kangaroos could wait and immediately signed up to go. 

We’d had long talked about taking a river cruise and this seemed to be a good opportunity finally to do it.

Now, Portugal is not my favorite European country.  The last time I’d been there was in 1984 as part of our three-month, Eurail tour of Europe.  Dianne and I were on a tight budget and stayed in a flophouse on the less opulent side of Lisbon. 

Back then, we arrived in town on a Saturday, walked around the city on Sunday, took a day trip to the seaside beaches at Estoril on Monday and departed on Tuesday, hurrying off to Madrid.

In addition to the one-week cruise, this year’s Portugal trip would include three additional weeks of independent train travel around the country. Instead of fleabag lodgings, we would stay in three- and four-star hotels, safely located in the nicer sections of town. 

With the trusted assistance of Google, I mapped out an itinerary that gave us multiple days for exploring Portugal’s two largest cities plus we’d enjoy a trio two-night stopovers in three smaller cities close to the coast.

This would be like one of those many trips I made when actively working as a travel journalist, only this time I would only be taking photos for stock sale and a slide show, not doing interviews and recording notes for a story.

One thing we’ve learned over the years is that less is more.  Since we would be traveling much of the time on our own, we needed to be mobile.  That meant small, carry-on luggage holding no more than three or four changes of lightweight clothing that could be sink washed and drip dried overnight. 

I found some Eagle Creek roller bags at REI (Really Expensive Items) that looked ideal.  They were small enough to fit in the aircraft overheads, yet large enough to tote all we’d need for our four-week adventure. Best of all, they had heavy-duty rollers that should stand up to the cobblestone sidewalks of Portugal.

In 1984, we carried no electronics – no cell phones, no iPads, no Kindles, no laptops and no camera battery chargers.  On this trip, we had all that crap.  That meant we had to also tote along plug and voltage converters.

One of the things Rick Steves says I should worry about in Europe are pickpockets.  In 1984, we used cloth money belts, which are worn under one’s pants.  They work fine until one needs to pay for something.  I found it to be a bit embarrassing to have to unzip my trousers to retrieve cash or a credit card.

This time we protected our valuables by using ScotteVests, which we got for free years ago at a travel bloggers convention.  They have close to a zillion pockets with zippers. While I suppose they’re not totally pickpocket-proof, a thief would have to do a lot of groping to pick the inside pocket into which we had zipped our wallets and passports.

After telling her our plans, our Bookcliff Vineyards travel agent did a fantastic job of booking nice hotels in Lisbon, Porto and near the depots in the three towns we would be visiting by train.  With lodging all prepaid, all we had to do was show up and pay the local tax.  It’s been years since I’ve worked with a real travel agent when arranging travel, and I highly recommend it.

We spent nearly the full day before our departure packing our roll-on suitcases, which seemed to be shrinking in size.  My dresser began collecting a larger and larger pile of things that just weren’t going to fit in my suitcase. 

Finally, with bags stuffed, it was time to set the alarm and head for bed.  Our taxi to the airport would be here long before sunrise.