11/06/2024

 

 

A Portuguese cloak overlooking the Douro

 

We did not have anything to “do” until 2 PM, and so we slept in a bit, and went up on the sun deck to enjoy some sunny (but chilly for a while) weather.  We locked twice before lunch. These locks are quite high – the first at 84 feet and the second at 128 feet.

 

 

Enjoying the sun deck

The Captain captaining

 

 

Cruising the beautiful Douro

 

At 11 AM the butlers came out to perform the ceremony of “sabering”.  This bit started in the Napoleonic era when soldiers would open the bottles of wine by taking their sabres and neatly catching the cork of a champagne bottle thus opening it.  The Butler gave us a nice spiel and then took their sabres and opened 2 bottles of sparkling wine.

 

 

Sabering the wine

 

At this point, the river is rather narrow and so we had to wait for a time while another river boat locked and cruised down river. We negotiated our final lock nearly an hour late. We boarded our bus to the Archeological site of the Coa Valley.  

 

In the 1990’s as a dam was being considered, some archeologists found some rock art dating to the Neolithic.  The dam was paused.  When further excavations yielded what became 28 kilometers of rock art on both sides of the Coa valley, the dam was abandoned and UNESCO adopted this site.

 

 

Arriving at the Coa Valley Archeological Park

 

Our tour bus took us within 4 KM of the site when we boarded 12 year old Izuzu 4 wheel trucks and drove another 30 minutes down a very bumpy track (not a road, but a track) to the Coa river. Our guide then walked with us to the several examples of rock art that were included in the tour.

 

 

What it looks like today

 

 

Unlayered view

 

What was amazing (well, it was all amazing) was that the shape of these critters here is the same as in Ethiopia, Egypt, France, Malta, the Levant …  Our guide described the several theories as to why the artists drew over existing art when there were perfectly adequate surfaces within 5 feet. In the end we have no clue why they did what they did.  (Except it doesn’t involve ancient aliens).

 

The artists used quartz to peck out the lines and make them smooth in the softer shale medium.  Some obsidian was used to make the finer details.  These drawings were made between 35,000 and 11,000 years ago.  Archeologists note the progression of style and competence to make these dates.

 

 

 

Explaining

 

 

Reindeer horns (the white lines behind the grass)

 

We left the site amazed and full of wonder at the ingenuity of our Sapient ancestors. The Coa valley is quite steep as the 4 wheel antiques rolled up the hill to the visitor’s center

 

 

That bit of white is the Coa river

 

We made it back to the ship in the dark.  It had moved from where we were let off to the Spanish border. We attended the Port talk and then had dinner – good salmon with lime foam and Carbonara.  The dessert was quite good – ice cream with Port wine reduction.

 

Only 6210 steps today.