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Is Luxury Good or Bad for You?
Want To Travel Like the Rich? Read This First
Posted July 27, 2015
I have been thinking a lot about this question: why do so many people envy the way the rich travel? What is it about posh hotel rooms, uberchic restaurants, pricey wines, and heel-clicking service that makes folks say: “I want that”?
Whatever it is, I’ve met women who skip one or even two meals a days so they can have money to indulge in such luxury; men who pin their hopes for advancement on being seen traveling in high style; young professionals who spend small fortunes on clothes, shoes, luggage, restaurants, and all the right accessories so they be perceived as highly successful; and many others who just dream about living the life of Trump (not the political part).
It’s easy to come up with clichéd answers to the question: low self-esteem, dissatisfaction with one’s life, misplaced entitlement, believing that spending equals happiness and that more is better. The truth is that this is the way things are. High luxury has high appeal for many travelers and would-be travelers.
So I decided to approach the question another way: I am a professional travel writer. Why not find a destination that is luxurious, designerly, gorgeous, culturally varied and interesting…and affordable? Is there a place to go where you can reward yourself for being a good person, surviving a divorce, healing from a disease, working hard, connecting with old friends who want to travel together, graduating, getting married, landing a new job, wanting romantic time with your honey, celebrating a birthday or anniversary, suddenly finding yourself with an empty nest, or just wanting to live the good life without having to join Debtors Anonymous? The answer is: yes, there is. It’s the Douro Valley in Portugal.
You’re probably wondering: how much is “affordable?” The answer: you can stay in a fabulous quinta, or wine estate, with endless views of lush vineyards (which turn golden at harvest time) including breakfast, for $100 to $150 a night for two people.
And you can eat in a casa de pasto—think trattoria—with local and regional specialties for about $20 or less. As for the price of world-famous, award-winning Douro wines (red, white, rosé and port), you can get a good bottle for $5, and picnic on a hillside with cheese and bread.
The celebrated scenery is free.
Or you can go to a winetasting, find what you like, and buy a bottle or 10 directly from the winemaker.
The Douro Valley has a long history, which means that there’s a lot of history to experience, learn about, and explore. The Romans were growing wine and indulging themselves in the region a few thousand years ago. Quinta Nova, which dates to the l8th century and overlooks the Douro River, is owned by “the Cork King”–the richest man in Portugal. On the grounds are three Roman orchards enclosed in small slate walls to protect the figs, quince, almonds, and oranges from what were then the biggest menaces: thieves and black pigs. Guests are invited to take baskets and pick fruit that they can consume for free. If you stay there, you can even be “Winemaker For a Day” for $40, including your own bottle of wine which you have blended and for which you have designed the label. Near the entry of the estate, you can stop and visit an old Roman picnic site, replete with orchards, a large stone pool, and a secret underground passage that led to an olive mill. This side-trip into history costs you nothing.
Enroute to the next quinta (my husband and I went to the Douro Valley for my birthday a month ago and stayed at a different quinta every night or two), we stopped at Covas do Douro, a small hamlet with houses built into—and seemingly hanging from-- the cliffs. Everywhere you look there are vineyards, and everyone apparently makes a living from wine. The nearby town of Sabrosa claims to be the birthplace of the explorer Magellan, and if you have a 4 wheel drive car, you can bump along a dirt road that leads to an ancient Lusitanian (pre-Roman) fortified village on a hilltop. As you drive through the countryside, you find yourself in charming small villages with maronesas, or indigenous cows with long, curved horns...
...and espigueiros, which are stone storage units for corn, and shepherds who herd their flocks and sometimes carry a baby sheep in their arms. It’s a priceless immersion into pastoral placidity and timeless, tranquil charm.
In Vila Real, potters sell typical, local black pottery at very low prices, and locals are so friendly that João Ribeiro da Silva, the director of two museums in old Vila Real, said he will take you to visit the ancient Quintela tower, if you ask at the museums and he is not busy. For free.
If you spend the night—or several nights– at the very designerly and very affordable Morgadio da Calcada in Provesende, you will meet the owner, who comes from a very very wealthy Portuguese family that owned the property in the l7th century. One of his ancestors was Cardinal Alpedrinha, who, when offered the Papacy, refused.
If you are friendly, and stay for dinner, you may be taken to the wine cellar to see barrels dating to the l8th century that hold 16,000 liters of wine each. And you’ll be offered a tour of the main house, built in l680, which drips with period art, furniture and antiques. I do not want to be a spoiler, but the room where you dine will make you gasp with surprise and delight. And the next morning, if you ask in advance, you can go to the local bakery very early to make bread with the traditional bakers.
If you want to buy bread instead of making it, it will set you back about $1.30. And if you wish to walk around the small town, the architecture, which spans several centuries, goes back as far as the l400’s.
It’s an hour’s drive to Foz Coa, which houses the world’s largest collection of outdoor Paleolithic art. The four-year old museum contains thrilling artifacts, videos of scientists talking about the art, replicas of 40,000-year-old drawings, art installations, reconstruction of a Paleolithic settlement, and speculation about why our human ancestors created such fine representations in stone.
It is impossible to be disappointed by the elegant beauty of the Douro Valley region; the landscape, with its scalloped vineyards, is classified as a UNESCO World Heritage site and preservation is very important to locals. In order to highlight the importance of the wines you will be drinking, a wine museum opened in 2014 in S. Joao da Pesqueira, which holds the distinction of being the biggest producer of port wine in the world. Think wine tastings in the museum, Fado music at night, and crafts fashioned from cork in the gift shop.
We decided to go to another museum in Regua—the Museu do Douro. There were few other visitors, and we gravitated to the wall that had a lineup of what looked like perfume bottles. Each, in fact, contained red, white, and port wines, and we were invited to see if we could identify the aromas. I failed miserably, but that didn’t stop me from enjoying the subsequent tasting of the wine.
At the Quinta do Tedo Agroturismo B + B, we experienced friendliness, but not luxury. Instead, we saw magnificent, multi-colored birds, had a wine tasting, paddled a canoe and a kayak, and the all-inclusive price for two people was $100. That enabled us to splurge on an expensive dinner at DOC restaurant owned by celebrity chef Rui Paula. We sat on the outdoor deck, and I can heartily recommend the smoked eel, and the octopus and potato and olives in a kind of savory stew. When you leave, a waitperson kisses you goodbye. Really. Isn’t that kind of luxurious affection good for you?
It is worth a stop at the Salzedas Monastery, where construction first began in 1168, and where massive rebuilding took place from the l6th to l8th centuries. In the Medieval period, the Cistercian monks were divided into two groups: those who worked, and those who prayed. Presumably, those who worked supported those who prayed. The main room of the monastery is privately owned today, but you can visit it. Gorgeous light floods in through the wooden bars of the windows, and you can hear the trill of birds that serenades you during your visit. Upstairs, you can admire the famous blue and white Portuguese tiles, and visit the l8th century sacristy, the l3th century baptismal font, and the stone carving of two lions that share one head. Be sure to stop at two paintings by Vasco Fernandes, the most famous artist of the l6th century.
In Ucanha, a medieval town, we walked across the old stone bridge and ate in a restaurant at the other end.
We sat at communal tables, enjoying the vitality of the noisy, lively, authentic eatery, and opted for lamb slow-roasted in a wooden oven.
In Lamego, known for its Portuguese Baroque architecture, we visited the cathedral, and worked off our meal by climbing down what seemed like thousands but was probably hundreds of steps. And then we arrived at Quinta de Tourais, where we stayed in a renovated 12th century building in the “red room,” which earned its name from the red accents to the décor. We looked out over the swimming pool, tennis courts, horses, and vineyards as we talked to Maria, the owner of the palatial quinta. Her aristocratic family was forced to leave Portugal after the 1974 revolution, and they lost the house their ancestors had lived in for eight centuries. Maria was determined to get the house back, and the dramatic story of how she did it will leave you moved and fascinated. The quinta is so large and has so many rooms that each couple who dines there has their own banquet-sized room, with a long table set, at the end, for two. Prices start at $100 for two with breakfast.
There’s a little deviation in this economy luxury journey: two Michelin-starred restaurants that you do not want to miss. They do not come cheaply, but the restaurants I will now drool over as I remember the meals are probably half to two thirds the price of similar restaurants elsewhere in Europe. The first is in the luxurious Yeatman hotel in Porto (which is the destination city you fly to when you begin the trip) and the second is Largo do Paco, in the Casa Calcada hotel in Amarante, on the way back to Porto after your Douro Valley visit. At the Yeatman restaurant, where a mint green and off-white tropical mural soothes your senses, you start out with cones of mashed potato and grated Azorean cheese, apple macaroon with cream of eel and beet, a lollipop made of morel mushroom, a tiny pancake with foie gras, pink prawns served tartare style, blue lobster with orange puree…...and these are the amuse bouches before the meal. At Largo do Paco, the butters are laced with caviar and seafood, and dishes like cheese foam baguette, pork belly with orange marmelade, truffles with port wine jelly, sardine tartare with tomato and gazpacho ice, guinea fowl with puree of corn and seaweed and fresh orge are whisked to your table by friendly staff who love being your guides to Portugeuse gastronomy.
These restaurants are your ultimate treat, your act of self-love. Just ask your wallet for permission, take out your credit card, and do it. Isn’t life meant to be a celebration?
At the end of my luxurious birthday trip, I felt soothed, stimulated, well-wined and dined, educated, inspired, and longing to return to the magnificent valley. I didn’t overreach or rue the money I spent. This kind of affordable luxury, I concluded, is definitely good for you. For your heart, soul, mind–and you can bank on it.
IF YOU GO:
For more information about visiting the Douro Valley: http://www.dourowinetourism.com
Please note that I have quoted the prices in dollars although Euros are the currency.
Judith Fein is an award-winning international travel journalist, author, keynote speaker, workshop leader. She sometimes takes people on exotic trips with her. Her website is: www. GlobalAdventure.us
