Since Portugal is known for its stunning tile work, our tour guide, Maria, arranged for our group to design our own piece of tile as a souvenir. Maria is the woman with the dark her bending over in the middle of the photo. Sept. 16, 2013

Our evening entertainment was a Coimbra-style Fado performance. This performance was with three men, however the Fado performance we saw in Lisbon featured a woman singer. Feb. 16, 2013

The main square and buildings of the historic block of the University of Coimbra

We left Coimbra to head to the scenic Douro Valley, birthplace of port wine. The Douro hillsides are horizontal homes to grape vines and olive trees. The drive up and around the hills is both beautiful and scary, but thankfully our bus driver did a wonder job on those narrow roads and hair-pinned curves. Sept. 17, 2013

The Quinta Santa Eufemia farm led by eldest sister Teresa walked us through the hilly grape vines and shows us how they produce the wine. Sept. 17, 2013

For lunch we had appetizers of little sandwiches with olive oil from the Quinta Santa Eufemia farm. The two main courses of cod fish with potatoes, beans and rice were utterly delicious and topped off with cream braille and cake for dessert. We also drank quite a bit of the family’s port and wine. Sept. 17, 2013

Another hotel with a gorgeous view from our room, but this time its in Pinhao at the Vintage House Hotel in the Douro Valley. Our beautiful hotel room had a balcony with a view of the Douro River. Sept. 17, 2013