As previously mentioned, the urban area south of the Douro and opposite Porto is officially a separate city: Vila Nova de Gaia (“New Town of Gaia”), or simply Gaia. It’s where we were based for the first part of this trip. Gaia’s most celebrated feature is its impressive collection of port wine ‘caves’ (or cellars) facing the Ribeira district of Porto. For three consecutive days, our explorations began in Porto, and then we would move over to Gaia for lunch at the excellent Mercado Municipal. On the first of the three days we returned to the apartment on the cable-car system – touristy, but it had to be done once. On the second day we moved on to a self-guided cave tour at Taylor’s, while on the last day of the three we adjourned to the tasting room at Ferreira.
Mercado Municipal
This was our much-visited lunch venue!
Taylor’s tour
Taylor’s was our chosen port producer for the full ‘tour’ experience. Whether for Covid-19 reasons or otherwise, it turned out to be self-guided. Either way, I think we both felt it was a bonus to be able to proceed at our own pace.
Ferreira tasting
The Ferreira tasting room had a pleasantly upmarket feel, and the pours were remarkably generous!
