Five granite villages worth getting lost in

The Douro isn't only vineyards. Behind the terraces sit stone villages where the wood ovens never go cold.

Drive ten minutes up from the river and the landscape changes. The vines give way to chestnut and granite, and you start passing villages that the Port trade made quietly rich two centuries ago.

Provesende

The grandest of them, with manor houses around a square and a baroque fountain in the middle. The communal bread oven still bakes.

Nobody comes to these villages to see a sight. You come to sit in a square and let an afternoon go by.

— Sofia Lindqvist

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