Interesting day today, and I’m going to tread lightly, because I might step on some toes before this is over. You’ve been warned.

We began the day still docked in Régua.

Right after brekkie, though, we hopped on the busses and headed off to Lamego, which meant crossing to the other side of the river. We didn’t use either of the old bridges, though.

Nope. Instead, we used the new one (which we were on when I took the pic of the old ones). It’s really impressive - and apparently, it was used as a set piece in one of the 40-or-so “Fast and Furious” movies.

Along the way, we saw more terraced vineyards. They’re everywhere along the Douro river.

The higher we climbed up the banks of the river, the more rugged the terrain became.

After about 20 minutes or so, we arrive in the town of Lamego. This is a town that was literally built on religious tourism. It seems that the town was dying off and the ruler at the time decided that he needed a gimmick to get people to come visit. So he commissioned the Pope to bestow on the town an artifact worthy of a trip to visit it and the Pope sent him home with a statue of the Madonna, breastfeeding the baby Jesus, which would have healing powers to those who gazed upon it.

Virgin Mary boobage? Scandalous! Well, maybe. Nobody had internet back then, so people would come from all over to see this thing, wondering how much it would show. Spoiler alert: not much.

Anyway, just in case word got out that the statue wasn’t going to live up to whatever things people conjured up in their minds, they also named the church it sat in a sanctuary. By all accounts, you only get that designation if a miracle has happened in that place, but nothing happened in Lamego, other than a desperate need for tourism. So it’s called a sanctuary. To be fair, it’s a pretty building.

Oh, and see that decorated tile work? Here’s a closer-up pic of it:

People and angels. It’s all very pretty. Look closely, though, and you’ll see an oddity. Perhaps I’m not 100% up on my angel anatomy, but apparently this artist thinks that angels have a lot more toes than people do. At least six on each foot, anyway.

And speaking of toes, here’s where I’m going to step on a few. The sanctuary where no miracle happened which holds a statue that was gifted for the sole purpose of tourism sits atop a hill high in the city, approachable by a massive set of stone steps. Nearly 700 of them, in fact. From the top, it’s almost impossible to make out where the bottom of the steps begin.

From the bottom, those stairs are quite daunting - and the stone steps are rough and worn. To get a sense of scale, look at the tiny little people at the bottom.

Now, here’s the thing… every year, people come here for a few days in early September to climb these steps on their hands and knees to reach the top and ask the breastfeeding Madonna to offer them healing. You know, from the bloody hands and knees they won’t be suffering from if they hadn’t made that climb to begin with.

But hey, whatever makes you happy, right? Except that it’s a thing that pregnant women should also make this climb on their hands and knees in order to “insure God’s blessing for a healthy baby.” Sorry, but that’s barbaric. Back in the dark ages, before we had science and medicine and knowledge about what makes for a healthy baby, I might forgive a little superstition, but this is still going on. If the government of Portugal was suggesting that pregnant women do this, we’d all be boycotting Portugal and shaming them for their blatant mistreatment of women. But offer it up as a religious pilgrimage and suddenly it’s all ok? I call BS. It’s still barbaric and the fact that the church is still not only condoning it, but encouraging it is just sick.

OK, I’m done.

Anyway, down at the bottom of the steps and down the road a bit is another church, not as fancy, but much older: Built in 1127.

I climbed down the steps to the town below, but Ken, Heather, and Rob opted to ride the bus back down. I met up with them soon enough.

The stretch of the town from the bottom of the steps to the city centre was actually really pretty.

We poked our noses in a few shops, including this cute little one that sold port wine and cream liquors of various flavours.

On top of another hill overlooking the city, you can see what’s left of the old castle. It’s basically just a tower now.

Then it was back to the ship, where we cast off and headed back downriver to return to Porto. There were two locks to navigate along the way (which we’d already seen on the way upriver). Neither of them involved having to vacate the top deck of the ship, but one of them did involved having to duck a little.

While up top, it was fun to again watch the crew prepare the ship for the low clearances.

Captain Cutie Pie… err, Captain Fabio was navigating the ship from the alternate control panel at the front corner of the ship after he lowered the command bridge.

Rob was more interested in watching one of the deck hands, who reminds me a lot of the character Amos from The Expanse.

Regardless, it’s always fun to sit up top and barely make it under the roofline of the various locks.

After dinner (which included sour cream ice cream, which I didn’t even know was a thing before this trip, but it’s the best thing. I first had it at the restaurant where the three guys played and sang while we ate, but here it was again and damn. Where has that been all my life?) we had a demonstration on how to open a really old bottle of port without getting the cork in the wine. It involves hot tongs and ice water.

Then some student musicians came on board and started doing a performance of songs in Portuguese. They were good, but it had already been a long day and we were more than ready to head back to the room.

Click here to go on to Porto.

Click here to return to the previous day.

Click here to return to the Spain/Portugal menu.

Click here to return to the Travelogue menu.