Cheers! Portugal is rich in liquid assets

IT’S like something out of a Wes Anderson film. Majestic sugary-pink facade, symmetrical rows of windows framed by elegant Juliet balconies, French doors tucked beneath a striped canopy.

But the Vidago Palace Hotel, though certainly grand, is nowhere near Budapest. It’s about an hour’s drive from Porto in the region of Trás-os-Montes (Beyond the Mountains), a picturesque slice of northern Portugal often overlooked as a holiday destination.

It wasn’t always this way. When the hotel, built as an opulent retreat for King Carlos I, opened in 1910 European dignitaries travelled from far and wide to visit the small town of Vidago.

The palatial hotel enticed them in, for sure, but something in the surrounding parklands proved an even greater draw: the thermal springs. The naturally carbonated, mineral-rich water was – and still is – extolled for its medicinal properties, and doctors encouraged patients to drink and bathe in it to cure all manner of ills.

Even today, visitors can enrol in a fortnight-long detox programme, whereby a doctor prescribes how much water to drink each day and which treatments to undergo based on your ailments.

This option isn’t open to me as I’m only staying for a few days but I’m keen to sample the spa, considered one of Europe’s best. Several of the treatments are water-based and I opt for a Vichy shower. I lie on a bed beneath a row of shower heads that gently spray me with mineral water, which bubbles and fizzes on my skin while a therapist massages me.

Afterwards I drink fresh mint tea, take a dip in the heated outdoor pool, steam in the hammam then dry off in the sauna. Pampered, moi?

Decadence is the order of the day at the Vidago Palace Hotel, you see. Guests are encouraged to take a stroll through the beautiful 250-acre grounds and stop by one of the thermal springs to sup direct from the source.

After drinking my body weight in sparkling water I’m sufficiently hydrated to turn my attention to another beverage we can all agree is part of a healthy diet. The nearby Douro Valley is one of the oldest wine regions in the world – and surely one of the most beautiful.

Terraced vineyards cascade down the slopes of the valley, which you can explore by car on the bum-clenchingly hairpin roads, as I did, or see from a boat by cruising along the Douro river.

The region is renowned for its port, so I make a stop at the Douro Museum in Peso da Régua to learn more about its history and sample some of the sweet and syrupy fortified wine.

Douro Valley with its river in the middle of the vineyards (iStock)

I then take a tour through the cellars of the Sandeman winery in Vila Nova de Gaia, which culminates in – you guessed it – a few more glasses of port.

My stomach requires some lining if I’m to continue this way, so I go for lunch at chef Rui Paula’s DOC restaurant on the banks of the Douro. I’m seated at a table on the terrace (which is suspended over the river) where I devour an incredible three-course meal of Mozambique shrimp with coconut and mango, crispy suckling pig with galette potatoes and pumpkin and cheese with spiced ice cream.

Each dish is expertly paired with wine by the restaurant’s sommelier.

I leave feeling full, fuzzy and perhaps just the tiniest bit drunk. Good thing I couldn’t go for that detox after all, eh?