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Douro River Cruise-Where It Starts and Ends

by Jane Sophia
Douro River Cruise

The Ultimate Guide to Douro River Cruise will give you a special perspective of Spain.

Douro River Cruise

That’s the Douro River, flowing in Portugal and Spain, in the Iberian Peninsula to be exact. How about a week-long cruise on this scenic river that flows for 897 km?

Any river that runs for as many as 1000 km is worthy of taking people on its back-right?

What a river cruise can show you?

  • The villages and cities it passes through
  • The agriculture that depends on it
  • The life of people on its banks
  • The mountain it kisses
  • Its tributaries that branch off and rejoin
  • The port of calls that the cruise liners dock
  • The fish and river water crabs that it nurtures, etc.

The cities that you can see during your Douro River cruise:

  • Soria
  • Almazán
  • Aranda de Duero
  • Tordesillas
  • Zamora.

For you and I who live nowhere near the Douro Valley located in Portugal and Spain, these names of cities may not mean anything but it doesn’t matter. After all, a river cruise is meant to be new and fresh to us.

The names of cities and villages, the food, the culture, and the weather are all will be certainly new and strange to us. Nevertheless, it is that freshness that usually excites a traveler-right?

The Douro river cruise –starting and terminating points:

Your Douro River cruise begins at Porto, Portugal and ends at Vega de Terron, Spain.

What is the distance covered in the Douro River cruise?

It is just 125 km only from Porto and Vega de Terron.

What are all the attractions that you can see on your Douro River Cruise?

  • Tour the palace of Dukes of Bragança in Guimarães, a Portuguese city.

palace of Dukes of Bragança in Guimarães Douro River Cruise

  • Terraced vineyards

Douro River Cruise-Terraced vineyards

Beautiful! The vineyards that are planted artistically on a hill’s terrace and the Douro River kissing the hill’s foot on its course is a fascinating sight. This one view alone is worthy of your expenses incurred for this Douro river cruise trip.

  • Wine tasting

Of course, what’s the point of visiting vineyards without a session of wine tasting? Yes, you are entitled to wine tasting as a part of your Douro River cruise package. You will be guided to go around the Quinta da Aveleda winery. I am sure you have heard about this winery’s famous champagne. Rest assured folks, you will be offered to have a free taste of this great white wine.Douro River Cruise

  • Visit the famous Douro Museum in Peso da Régua.
  • Do you like monasteries? Their calm and peace are contagious. A visit to the 12th-century monastery named Mosteiro de São João de Tarouca is included in the itinerary of your Douro River cruise package.
  • Go around the beautiful Mateus Palace.

Douro River Cruise-Mateus PalaceOh, what a beauty! Do you think our present-day architects can visualize anything like this? No chance whatsoever.

  • Salamanca city-Spain

Douro River Cruise-Salamanca

The city’s architecture looks charming that usually makes the residents proud of their city’s cultural heritage.

Here is one more aerial view of Douro River

Douro River

  • Vila Nova de Foz Côa, a city in Portugal that your Douro River cruise ship will dock at, is famous for arts inscribed on rocks.

Foz Côa

For novices, the rock looks threadbare but for archeologists, they mean much. They discovered that the rock arts depict the figures of horse and cattle and the inscriptions date back to 22,000 years! Oh, surely it is pre-historic period.

  • If you are brave, take a canoe on your own and go rowing in Sabor River, a tributary of river Douro.
  • Stroll on the hills of Douro Valley, sink in the beauty of rustic countryside where the life of rural people seems to have halted. For them, the time is their obedient servant; they are not dictated by the time like us.

The Scenic Azure cruise ship is a luxury yacht with all the basic amenities such as a plunge pool on board with a big sundeck.

Scenic Azure cruise ship

There are superb dining areas where you get to taste the well-known Spanish cuisine and little-appreciated Portuguese cuisine.

If you like, you can arrive at Porto, the starting Portuguese city two days before and see around Porto, Portugal’s second big city next to Lisbon, its capital.

Similarly, you can stay behind in Madrid, Spain and go sightseeing for a couple of days. There is much to see in Spain.

Usually, the Douro River cruise is a round trip. But you can extend your trip either before or after and decline the return cruise.

Book your Douro River cruise suite in Scenic Azure at Here

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1 comment

Abhiit December 6, 2018 - 4:54 am

Beautiful photography and nice information. I read Porto town in Portugal is a hub where Port wine from hinterland is brought for sending to warehouses downstream. Earlier it used to be transported on barges these days it is transported over land. There is a history also. Anglo Portuguese army had crossed river and fought French occupation force and defeated them.

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