Finally, though, the river is the star of a Douro River cruise and simply standing at the rail and observing whatever the river offers is constantly rewarding. The light changes, directions change, weather changes, river banks close in and open back up. The ship carries the observer ineluctably from one display to the next. Each is interesting; each is a vignette of the river scene; each is equally interesting. They range from dramatic to mundane, and each provokes questions that are left unanswered as the ship moves on and the river slides past. Each scene contains mysteries, raises questions. 

This last post about the Douro River (and thus, the very last about the 2019 visit to Portugal) depicts some of this intriguing variety. There are great dams and locks small under a blue and overarching sky. Stone ruins, well built but abandoned, raise questions about what happened to their inhabitants. Riverine commerce and construction and renovation are on fascinating display. Wildlife is limited, of course, bears and wolves are long gone or in retreat, what remains is interesting: a gull we don't have stands on a buoy that might have belonged to a circus clown or a barber. Like a sentry, a heron balances near the locks. The river's banks deflect and enliven the light and throw shadows across the water.   Sometimes the water, mirror smooth, vividly reflects the tart greens of foliage on the banks, or the piercing gold of the setting sun. Sometimes the looming banks above narrow passages frame a histrionic sky, a dramatic display of tension between light and dark.

Even the rain during the final hour of the tour is refreshing. Mist, flat light, and dense rain illustrate yet another mood of the river. They obscure shoreside features and hint at what river traffic must have been like before navigational aids, before the dams and locks tamed the river, and when the classic flat-bottomed wind-powered boats, the barcos rabelos, carried heavy wine casks through what the Fonseca Porto website calls "the lethal rapids, treacherous shoals and narrow gorges of the fast-running Douro."

Here and now, despite the dams and aids, reality retreats behind the mist. The mist renews and enhances the river's mysteries. The river's changing weather  has put the mist back in mystery.

Just in case anyone wants to see still more photos from Portugal (from the Algarve, Lisbon, Porto, and Douro River galleries), this link takes you to the group containing all my Portugal galleries.  

https://bobeastaughimagery.zenfolio.com/f917448740

Thank you for visiting this site and taking a look.