One of my favorite excursions on my Douro River cruise with Riviera Travel didn't include wine, though there was plenty of that. It featured a glass of homemade apple juice.
We were at Casa de Mateus, a 1744 Baroque manor, where the August heat bore down upon us. Something we heard repeatedly throughout the week from our Portuguese guides: residents enjoy nine months of winter and endure three months of hell.
I'll let you guess which part of the yearly weather pattern we were experiencing.
My friend and I had just finished touring the property's chapel, visible from the street by its façade, and wandered into the onsite café, where we enjoyed freshly pressed apple juice, made from apples picked from the groves of trees on the manor's property, and conferred about our gratefulness for being alive in the 21st century where we could enjoy the comforts of air conditioning and on-demand ice cubes.
But the heat did not take away from the experience of being at Casa de Mateus.
This impressive manor, older than the United States, showcases a piece of Portuguese history so well preserved that exploring its grounds transports visitors back centuries. The manor's vineyard is part of the Douro Demarcated Region, the oldest wine region in the world.
The property feels like a time capsule, with the manor filled with furniture from the 17th to 20th centuries.
Descendants of the Sousa Botelho family, the manor's original owners, still live there part-time, though their living quarters are private and not part of the public tours. Paintings line the walls showing members of the 12 generations that lived there prior to the establishment of the Casa de Mateus Foundation in 1970.
And while the house is impressive, with its library of 6,000 tomes and wings stretching out with rooms filled with well-crafted furniture and treasures from abroad, it was the grounds that left a lasting impression.
To reach the house, you must walk down a gravel trail from the street, where a pond sits before the manor, mirroring it perfectly, as it was designed to do. I stood there for several minutes admiring the reflection and quietness of the property, imagining what it must have been like to see this same sight centuries ago after arriving via carriage or on foot.
After our tour of the manor, my friend and I wandered around the grounds, grateful for the cool shade under a canopy of trees and the gentle breeze that floated through the garden. Here in the expansive greenery, we were protected by vegetation that offered a respite from the sun as we sat on the stone steps and listened to the chatter of the birds, enjoying a simple pleasure others have appreciated for centuries here at the manor.