Douro hotels collection

To plant a vine in the Douro, the schist had to be broken with an iron bar, then walls raised to hold what little soil resulted: so the slopes climb in terraces to the ridges. Granite markers carved with the word Feitoria still trace among them the bounds the Marquis of Pombal had drawn around the vineyard. The rabelos, flat-bottomed boats, carried the casks down through the rapids to the river mouth. In the Côa valley, horses and aurochs engraved in the Palaeolithic cover the schist in the open air. A dam was to have drowned them; the plan was dropped.