Amarante - study trip

During the semester I've spent on Erasmus in Portugal, one of the classes that I've attended was Planeamento e Gestão de Projectos Turisticos (Planning and Managing Tourism Products).
The main task was to create our own business plans but meanwhile we had a chance to learn how one of the already existing Tourism Products really works.

"Welcome who comes for good"

Right at the begging of the semester the professor told us to keep one day of May free for a study trip. The place where we were supposed to go to was Casa da Calçada in Amarante.

Daniela Patricia Natalina Nuno Angela

Armando Simon Nelson

Amarante is famous for São Gonçalo who had unique abilities of miraculous healing. The most significant pieces of architecture in the city - the chapel and the former monastery were named after him.

The hotel which our professor was so eager to show us, turned out to be a very luxurious one with rich history of the building and its surroundings. My Portuguese classmates told me that the uniqueness of this place is even greater because of its history. Once upon a time, one Portuguese guy, who came back from France, brought the new techniques of wine production and became successful together with the whole wide Douro region. He was considered to be very poor before so his achievement is considered to be very spectacular. After one century or so, the family decided to keep the legend alive and developed a tourism product based on the vineyard and it's renovated buildings. That's how the yellow hotel of Casa da Calçada was born. According to the hotel's representative who gave a speech about this story, the moral is, that everybody may reach for the stars.

Casa da Calçada is a good example of a boutique hotel, which means it's not only luxurious but also has an intimate, magical atmosphere and rich history. Hotels of this kind are also known as design hotels and include extraordinary cuisine, stylish furnishings, as well as additional, unique facilities.

After seeing a couple of rooms, watching a movie about boutique hotels, listening and discussing the topic, we also met a person who is some kind of Big Fish for Portuguese Tourism. He told us that the most important is the idea and if we come up with a good one, we should keep it and protect it. At least that's how I understood it in Portuguese.

We've drank our glasses of juice which had the same color as the hotel's walls and some of us went to have churro, which originated in Spain. It's a kind of pastry with different fillings - we all chose chocolate. Delicious!

On the way back, Simon's car was fully packed with people - Patricia, Armando, Nelson and me. Guys told me that the road between Amarante and Vila Real is one of the most dangerous ones in Portugal. Beware!

All of the pictures in this post were taken with Nelson's camera. I'm glad I was finally able to make this post. By chance, I've found all of the pictures sent by Nelson to the mailbox, which I hardly ever check. Better late than never, as we say in Poland.