Hot and cold and healthy
Fraser Nelson
If you continue your journey beyond the little old-fashioned station at Tua — where you know when the train is about to arrive because a moped van splutters into life just minutes beforehand, bringing a little man bumping over the tracks to sell hot fresh loaves of bread — the railway clings even more precariously to the side of sheer black cliffs, just above the water level. At one point the tracks cross the river on a pontoon bridge and, for a few delicious moments, the train seems to float across the smooth dark water like a magical punt. The countryside becomes ever more remote, its vast emptiness punctuated only by the occasional quinta like Vesuvio, the Symingtons’ other pile. Across the river, a few hundred yards away, is a small bar where John Major once had a drink; the event is commemorated by a brass plaque, which is just as well since not much else seems to have happened there for several centuries.
My favourite time to visit the Douro is in the spring, when the crisp air hangs thick with the smell of orange blossom and when the ground is covered with early flowers. The walks are superb — and there is the famous Symington family picnic. Fifty or 60 members of this impressive clan gather in an olive grove on a small hillock on Easter Saturday, and for several hours a constant stream of Land Rovers disgorges blond children and blond Labradors in roughly equal measure. Sturdy matriarchs hand round cocktail sausages and cheese pie, the wine flows, and then, just as one is contemplating a snooze in the sun, Pennie and James, with supernatural energy, persuade you to join them for a two-hour stomp over the nearest mountain.
At vintage time, in late September, the place hums as farmers from all over the Douro bring in truckloads of grapes. These are pressed either by human feet — the slow deliberate rhythm egged on by grappa passed round in a tin cup, and by the fiddling of a local folk band — or, more frequently, by a set of mechanical legs which look and operate exactly like Wallace and Gromit’s ‘wrong trousers’. The juice is then subjected to a very rapid and intense fermentation process, before being stopped artificially by the addition of brandy. It then makes it way down the river to Porto, where it sleeps in the cool and dark port lodges for a year or two before being bottled.
After the three-hour train journey and a bumpy ride up the hill to Malvedos, there are few greater pleasures than to step out on to the terrace, a glass of chilled port in hand, and to drink in the huge sweep of the river to the left and right, listening to the train rattling its way still further upstream, the clacking of the tracks and the mournful toot of its horn ricocheting gently in the steep valley below. You can lose yourself in quiet reverie at the sheer beauty of it all. The only danger is that you might turn round and bump into someone you haven’t seen since school. There are perhaps only six more weeks left to enjoy one of Europe’s most stunning natural resources: Stockholm in winter. The flights are cheap, the forests empty and the beer is pricey but only fools and Norwegians go there to drink. Ski holidays may blend into one on recollection, but there is nothing — absolutely nothing — quite like Sweden at this time of year.
Britain’s public transport network grinds to a halt at the sight of a snowflake, but Sweden’s national apparatus is designed for its long, luscious winter. When the water freezes (usually December to March) a new world springs up between the hundreds of islands around Stockholm. Snowploughs clear 25-mile paths for long-distance skaters, children set up stalls on the ice, selling hot blueberry soup. Parents on crosscountry skis take their infants for a ride in designer pram-sledges. And, for the brave, there are the holes in the ice.
No trip to Sweden is complete without trying bada isvak, which literally translates as ‘bathing in a hole in the ice’ after having baked yourself in a sauna. Various theories claim that this is good for you: it releases adrenalin, quickens blood circulation, cleanses the body of toxins or freezes off cellulite. But even the Finns, who pretty much invented the sport for lack of anything else to do in winter, do not waste time pretending they do it for the good of their health. It is an extreme sport for the ultra lazy, delivering all of the thrills with none of the exertion.
It takes place on the city’s outskirts (which are every bit as beautiful as its centre) and I headed half an hour north to find a fairly normal sauna which charged £2 (the doorman apologised: it used to be free). Then I was immediately separated from my female companions on the way to the changing rooms. This is fairly unusual: when Swedes rent saunas together for private weekends, men and women sit naked next to each other and sweat, thinking nothing of it. Swedes are brought up to consider nudity unremarkable; libido, I am assured, melts in the heat. But any sauna open to tourists has different ground rules: in mixed saunas you protect your modesty with a towel or a swimsuit.
Once inside, it is an act of Scandinavian machismo to head for the highest (and, ergo, hottest) wooden bench. I found a group of Finns doing exactly that in my sauna, dousing the rocks with water whenever the temperature slipped below boiling point. I duly made for the bottom bench, where breathing was easiest, and almost toasted my backside on the bare wood. Towels are a vital protection. ‘You know, I’ve been coming to saunas for 30 years and you’re the first person I’ve seen reading a book,’ came a voice from beyond the steam. He had a point: the glue was already melting from the spine of Flashman and its pages started peeling to the floor. In Britain we like our saunas hot but comfortable. In Sweden you can pretty much cook a chicken in them.
But you need such heat to prepare for the ice: the idea is to stay in the sauna (and gaze at winter views outside the window) until you can take no more. I gave up in ten minutes, but as I stepped outside I was amazed. I saw my bare feet walking in the snow, but I felt almost nothing. It was as if the sauna had created a force field around me. Heartened, I headed for the water.
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