Scenic Douro River Cruises On Traditional Rabelo Boats

To appreciate a rabelo cruise on the Douro, it helps to know how remarkable it is that the river can be sailed at all. Before the 20th century, the Douro between the Spanish border and Porto was a wild river of rapids, rocky shoals and sudden floods, and moving barrels of Port from the vineyards to the coast was a risky business that cost lives. The boats that did the work were the rabelos, flat-bottomed wooden vessels with a single square sail and a long steering oar, called the espadela, at the stern, which the helmsman worked from a raised platform. They carried around sixty barrels each and were built to be shallow enough to clear rocks and strong enough to take a bump.

The most feared obstacle was the Cachão da Valeira, a stretch of rapids upstream from Pinhão where the river squeezes between enormous boulders. In the late 18th century, the rocks were blasted to open a passage, and even then the stretch remained dangerous for boats, with the crews sometimes unloading barrels and carrying them around on land. The English wine shipper and cartographer Joseph James Forrester, who produced a famous map of the river in the 1840s, drowned there in 1861 when his boat overturned, a story still told in the valley. The river's character changed only in the second half of the 20th century, when a series of dams, built for hydroelectric power between the 1960s and the 1980s, turned the Douro into a chain of calm reservoirs and made it navigable, with locks, for river cruise ships. The railway and the roads had already taken away the barrel traffic.

The cruises from Pinhão therefore take place on tranquil water, and the pleasure lies in the landscape. The boats, now replicas fitted with engines and awnings, carry passengers along the river for a couple of hours, passing terraced vineyards, old estates and small quays, with an audio guide that explains the history of the terraces, the harvest and the Port trade in several languages. Lunch on board is offered on some departures, and wine can be tasted on others, so check what your ticket includes. The boats are small, and the pace is gentle, which makes the trip good for photography.

Departures follow set times, with morning and afternoon sailings, and they can change with the season and water conditions, so it is wise to book ahead, particularly in the harvest months of September and October. The cruise starts at the quay in Pinhão, a short walk from the railway station. Bring a hat, sunscreen and a light jacket, since the open deck can be hot at midday and breezy at other times. Summer temperatures can exceed forty degrees.

The cruise suits couples, families and anyone who wants an easy way into the landscape of the upper Douro, and it combines well with a visit to a quinta and the tiled station.