Cruising Portugal’s Douro River teaches 2 friends about wine and resilience

The contessa was not what I expected her to be. On a perfect summer morning in Portugal’s Douro Valley, I stood at the Hotel Rural Casa dos Viscondes da Várzea in a black dress and heels, waiting to meet her.

The night before, during the maiden-night briefing aboard AmaWaterways’ AmaDouro, Cruise Manager Fintan Kerr had informed us passengers that this contessa, Maria Manuel Cyrne, was “larger than life. She’s simply unforgettable.”

That much I could surmise after touring a few of the 150 acres of the contessa’s estate along with some 63 other AmaDouro cruisers, including my close friend and cabinmate, Sophie. The palace was replete with 27 bedrooms, a gold-leafed family cathedral, and a pigeon mansion (yes, a manor where feathered messenger birds reside).

A fantasy image of the Portuguese royal was fixed in my mind—that of a Chanel-clad, coiffed beauty who no doubt spoke with an Oxbridge accent.

Instead, Contessa Maria was a brassy bottle blonde, wearing a bright blue Zara shirt (“19 euros!” she cooed) and worn black slacks. When we caught up with her in the palace kitchen, she was doing the dishes.

Born into an aristocratic family, Maria grew up “like a princess in a palace,” but a coup—the 1974 Carnation Revolution—stripped her elite clan of its palatial property and sent Maria, suddenly a pauper, into hiding as a university student.

Eventually, Maria transformed a love of fashion into a retail empire, married another fallen noble, and finally snagged the palace. But even fairy tales come with bills, and Maria was determined to pay them.

When Sophie and I broke away from the group to chat with her, Maria grabbed a soapy wineglass, looked me in the eye and declared, “My darling, I will do what I need to do—even if it means working until 5 a.m. like I did last night. I am not going to lose a palace again.” She toweled off her hands and handed us flutes of sparkling wine. “Now let’s make a chin-chin and celebrate life!”

Welcome to the Douro Valley—a lush, expansive dreamland of sprawling vineyards and red-tiled quintas (wine-growing estates), gleaming palaces like Maria’s, and hushed medieval towns.

The 557-mile Douro River, which connects the valley’s villages and cities, not only sweetly ferried us up some 131 miles of navigable water but also offered us a window into the Alto Douro Wine Region, the world’s first demarcated wine zone.

A boutique ship built for the Douro River

Fast friends aboard the AmaDouro

Sharing an unexpected journey

Discoveries along the Douro River

Truth be told, I was skeptical about taking a river cruise. I had been a foreign correspondent who (more than once) had ridden a yak through a small Chinese village on a quest for a story.

Would cruising at 10 mph on a stunning but uneventful river prove to be a snooze? What could an adventurous traveler like me take away from such a manicured experience? More importantly, what could I learn about life? 

“Ocean and river cruises are very different,” explained Cruise Manager Kerr. “On a river cruise, you can always see something interesting on the nearby shore—you’re never very far from the culture you came to explore. We are always passing through some special place—a hamlet, a village, a quinta, a vineyard. And because we sail right up to the villages, it’s easy for us to launch into really special excursions, sometimes deep into the heart of the valley.”

Every morning on the AmaDouro, I could count on 3 things:

1. My custom-ordered mushroom omelet served by my ever-cheerful waiter at my favorite sun-streaked table near the picture windows.
2. Sophie in her white tank top and tennis skirt coming in from the pool deck. “I watched the dawn fog roll off the water, then did some yoga, meditation, and spontaneous dancing,” she’d say as I tried hard not to reply with a frozen smile: “Okay, crazy person!”
3. The sudden 8:30 a.m. rush of excursion-goers, toting water bottles, hats, and audio headsets that allowed us to hear our guide’s insightful commentary as we fanned out to the valley’s palaces, topiary gardens, and wineries.

Sometimes, to reach our excursion destinations, we would journey for an hour or more in AmaDouro’s luxury coaches, during which our impeccably educated Portuguese guide, Ines Mira, who had lived in the Douro for years, would dazzle us with her regional knowledge. I loved learning that Mira’s multigenerational family not only kept a yard full of working chickens but also made their own olive oil every year using pickings from their backyard trees.

On the third day, we docked overnight at Pinhão.

In the morning, we visited the iconic Mateus Palace, where we idled in the topiary garden and learned about port: The sweet red wine is usually made by adding a concentrated wine spirit, like brandy, to a port wine base. The resulting libation has a higher alcohol content, which is one reason port is generally served in small glasses—and also why Sophie and I were often passed out on the ship’s chaise lounges in the afternoon.

Deck with a view

While our excursions were educational and eye-opening, some of our best moments took place on the ship’s deck, where Sophie and I met every afternoon. Case in point: “What’s that?” Sophie gestured to a fuchsia rose pinned behind my ear, as we tossed our towels, lip gloss, and books onto a pool chaise.

“It’s from one of the cruisers. He gave it to me and just said, ‘Beauty.’ ” Sophie raised her flawless brows.

“Oh, don’t get your knickers in a twist,” I said, rolling my eyes. “He’s like 78—only slightly out of my range.”

Sophie grabbed my hand and pulled me to the ship’s rails. This was our afternoon ritual—to gaze out onto the water and beyond, into the middle distance.

The verdant banks, with their wooden plows, brick wells, and medieval churches, were a tableau of human ritual and resilience, the sky a canopy of eternity. The river’s green waters teeming with European sea bass flowed briskly past us and, as I lifted my face into the wind, an earthy whiff of brine filled my lungs.

I thought about what the contessa had shared earlier: There is no use clinging onto something that is no longer yours. You have to take action if you want to move forward. I loosened the rose from my hair, tore it into petals, and let them float like pink teardrops into the wind.