Barca d'Alva for Castelo Rodrigo

The Douro River has become one of the highest demand waterways for river cruises.

With plenty of sunshine and a beautiful country, it's easy to understand why.

If you seek scenic cruising, Viking's "River of Gold" itinerary is a great choice.

Those who see the cruise as primarily a means to get to shore excursions may be disappointed by Viking's approach, unless they choose to buy optional excursions. 

Our ship stopped at 11:30 AM in Pocinho for guests who had booked optional excursions.  Both excursions included lunches to provide a bit of local flavor, metaphorically and literally.

Julie and I enjoyed our standard itinerary, including the leisurely starts for river cruising.  Based on what others shared, our fellow cruisers also enjoyed the trip, regardless of whether they did optional excursions.

Morning Cruise on the Douro River with Viking (video).

Other river cruise lines have distinctly different approaches on the Douro and other rivers.  They may stop at different ports entirely in some cases.

If you regularly add optional excursions with Viking River cruises, you may want to give further thought to AmaWaterways, Avalon and Uniworld, which may provide deeper immersion in the region, albeit at higher prices than Viking.

Some of those competitors include both morning and afternoon excursions at no additional charge, as well as choices for different levels of activities based on physical fitness of guests.  Always review the specifics of an itinerary and what is included when choosing a river cruise.  They vary considerably.

It also means you can return to a river you love and have a very different experience based on what excursions you choose.

We again encountered many locks.

Julie took a brief video of one.

Cruising Into Locks on the Douro River (video).

Basically, a ship cruises into the lock.  A huge door closes.  Then, if the ship is going to a higher elevation of river, the lock fills and floats the ship higher.  If the ship is going to lower elevation, water is released, allowing the ship to slowly drift lower.

While river locks make it possible for cruise ships to adjust to changing river elevations, there was a dramatic change in 1790 that was required to make the easter part of the Douro navigable.

Prior to 1791, boulders that blocked the Douro at various points caused dangerous rapids.  This meant that land that could be productive vineyards could not transport their product.  By removing the boulders beginning in 1790, upriver vineyards became financially viable.

In the 20th century, modern technology delivered bulldozers and dynamite to make easier work of the task of making the Douro easier to transit.  This is another case where I find myself wondering what a modern state like California would do, given modern environmental concerns.

We again dined at a river view table for an unhurried lunch.

Our ship wasn't scheduled to stop at Barca d'Alva until 2:00 PM.  We were delayed a few minutes by another ship using the lock before us.  Locks hold only one ship at a time on the Douro, and even those are shorter than traditional ship sizes in Europe due to lock lengths.

That afternoon, the buses took us to Castelo Rodrigo, where we had what I would describe as a Jewish heritage tour led by our tour escort Inis.  I never felt she had the grasp of her subjects to the degree our Lisbon guide Tiago demonstrated, but she dutifully presented the information as we meandered through the ancient cobblestone streets.

The story goes that the hill on which Castelo Rodrigo is perched was used for hundreds of years before the medieval fortress was built on the site of an old castle.  However, there are no artifacts from those civilizations.

It may very well be that if excavations were done on the site, other layers of civilization would be revealed.  For example, in Cartagena Spain, a 6,000-seat Roman amphitheater built at the dawn of the "Common Era" had been buried for centuries before new construction dug it up in 1988, and that's not a unique example.

The pre-historic village of Skara Brae was uncovered when a massive storm hit Scotland's Orkney Islands in 1850 after being forgotten for 5,000 years.

Jay's friend Kim is an archaeologist in Los Angeles County, called out to investigate relics discovered in new projects, often forcing reconsideration of how to proceed.

With Castelo Rodrigo being a United Nations protected historical village, I can't imagine them digging it up soon to see what's below it.

In any case, if you believe the lore, then a forerunner village and likely fortress of some kind has been there since 500 years or more Before Christ.  Some say that might have been a Jewish village.  Over the years, it changed hands between conquering kingdoms, including the Romans, Visigoths, Moors (perhaps Moops if you believe George Costanza from "Seinfeld") and Spanish.

It seems to be generally accepted that the time of Muslim rule in Riba-Coa, which included the site of Castelo Rodrigo, as in Al-Andalus in Spain, was somehow a time of peaceful coexistence between the followers of various religions.  Generally speaking, the ruling class exploits dominance of the others, and I doubt there was an exception in Iberia.

This Gothic Castle goes back to the 12th Century, which if you recall was the time of the Crusades to re-claim the Holy Lands and Iberia from Muslim rule.  The Almohad Califate was a Berber Muslim empire, though it you're like me, perhaps neither name rings a bell.

The Christian army of King Alfonso IX of Léon (Spain) wrested control of "Riba-Côa," from the Berbers, returning it to Christian rule.

Parish Church of Our Lady of Rocamadour founded in the 13th Century

The UN calls Castelo Rodrigo "a rare example of Leonese architecture in Portugal."  I will note that the eastern gate seems to be a Moorish arch though Spanish architecture adopted many Moorish touches, merging them into their own styles.

Castelo Rodrigo was part of Leon's defensive line in 1209, when the town was chartered.

Almost immediately, Portugal challenged Leon's presence.  After back and forth battles, King Denis of Portugal captured Castelo Rodrigo in 1296.  Portugal remodeled the fortress, including building the wall that still surrounds the hilltop village.

In 1492, Spain banished Jews, and many took refuge in Castelo Rodrigo.

A tax of a third of their wealth is said to have been extracted to be allowed to stay.

Scallop Shell Marking Pilgrimmage Route for Santiago de Compostela

Spain became dominant in the area again, and Jews were forced to convert or go into hiding.  They hid their religious ceremonies and took surnames that didn't sound Jewish.  They even did things like making spicey sausages out of alternative ingredients to pork in order to appear more like their neighbors.

There's more history that unfolded there, but most prominent is that Spain burned down Moura Palace, which had been built there for the Spanish appointed Viceroy of Portugal.

Hard to believe, but among the ruins, about fifty residents still live in Castelo Rodrigo, some of them selling almonds and souvenirs to tourists.

There were stories about marks on buildings and the height of doors, some of which seemed more logical than others.  The Viking TV video below tells some of the stories.

After our guided tour, Julie and I went to the site of the castle ruins, which to us was more interesting visually than the streets through the Jewish quarter, as evidenced by our photo choices.

Back on the ship, we opted for Diet Pepsi on the sun deck.

After the usual happy hour, including a description of what to expect the next day, we enjoyed another tasty dinner.

That evening, we had flamenco dancers join us in the lounge.

Solearte put on an energetic show, with several costume changes.

All three women were excellent dancers.

The dancers had come aboard the ship from their home in Salamanca, Spain.

Oddly, walking down a busy street in Salamanca during our free time the next afternoon, we saw the percussionist walking towards us.  

He pointed at Julie and me and said, "Viking River Cruise."  At first we were sort of amazed he recognized us, but we remembered we still wore Viking lanyards holding our Quietvox listening devices.