Package of 5 greeting Cards with envelopes

6 x 4"

Image front reproduced from original Watercolour | “Oporto” | Private Collection

Porto is one of the most romantically beautiful and paintable cities I've had the good fortune to visit. The Douro river travels through the northern wine regions in Portugal emptying into the Atlantic ocean, dividing the cites of Vila Nova de Gaia and Porto. From the mid-1600's until the 1950's, wine was transported down from the vineyards in flat-bottomed boats called "Barcos Rabelos," for fortification, storage and bottling in the Port Lodges of Vila Nova de Gaia, where the world's port is still stored and exported. The boats don't exist anywhere else in the world. They are graphic and elegant reminders of the long tradition of port production - the Douro valley is the oldest defined and protected wine region in the world. The river sparkles with the lights of Porto tumbling down to the water and the dramatic bridge spanning it's breadth, beyond which lies the Atlantic. Clouds move past the coast warmly lit by the city, the Rabelos float askew in the waves of the river.