Kauffman Commentary

Thank you in Portuguese is obrigada (or o).  If a female is saying thank you, she would say obrigada with  the “a”. The man will say, obrigado, even when speaking to a woman.  It is all about the person speaking that defines the gender of the word.

There are 5 Viking ships that travel down and up the Douro. They are all shorter in length than other longboats by 55 meters. This is because the locks are smaller than most. This affects the way these ships are arranged, the stairways are pushed from the middle to the side and there is not a separate Aquavit casual restaurant option. Just an Aquavit lounge on the bow of the boat.

Castelo Rodrigo is a historical border town, just 8 miles from Spain. It dates back to the 13th century.  From the start, it had Jews living there and it became a sanctuary for Jews fleeing Spain during the 15th century. A few years later, Portugal no longer allowed Jews in the country, they had to be converted.  Castelo Rodrigo had become a community that took care of all of its people, regardless of their faith. They worked around the new laws and kept many of the “new christians”, as the actual Jews were called, safe from persecution.