We left Gaia, on the opposite bank to Porto, this morning to travel up the Douro to Pinhao on the Spanish border, where we would visit Salamanca, and then return along the Douro to finish back in Porto. Some places we would visit twice and Regua was one of these. 

We quickly arrived at, and passed through, the largest lock in Europe. Carrapatelo's Dam is about 85m long and 12m wide and the difference in the water level of this lock is about 35m. It was a huge wall as we approached it and we were obviously raised up the 35m. There has to be a bridge across the top of the lock for use across the river and as we passed out of the lock at the highest level it was hilarious. The control room of the cruise boat was lowered down, as was the deck sunroof but even more than that we couldn't stand on the top deck as we passed under the bridge and those that were sitting on the lowered deck had to lie flat to pass under. Hilarious to watch people doing this.

We enjoyed a very hot (34°) and relaxing morning along the river, had some lunch and then went on a visit to the Mateus Palace and gardens (think photo on Mateus Rose bottles). Lovely gardens, house a bit over-rated.

A little later, further along the river we came to the Sandeman estate to be taught about the production of port in this UNESCO area .....and then the port tasting. Very good viewing and interesting to see how they cope with vineyards on the extremely steep sides of the Douro valley.

We then had the added attraction of seeing two yellow firefighter planes flying down onto the river, scooping up water and taking it to douse fields and vineyards to put out a fire further back along the river.