After Helena and Tiago, the Those Who Stay series takes to the water. The third story brings us to Cais do Pocinho, in Vila Nova de Foz Côa, where Alexandra and Fernando founded Wild River Tours, boat trips that reveal the Douro Superior and the Côa Valley from a place almost no one sees them. From inside the river.
Those Who Stay · Wild River Tours, Foz Côa
It all began with a simple question. Why not? They spent weekends and holidays sailing the Douro Superior on their own boat, often spending the night moored at Cais do Pocinho, and they noticed there was demand for river activities and little or no offer in Foz Côa. They had the boat, a love of hosting, and a desire for a calmer life, in greater connection with nature. Only a few ingredients were missing for the recipe to be complete. At the end of 2024, they set to work.
From the river, the territory changes scale. “When we are on the water, we stop looking at the Douro as just a landscape. We come to be inside it,” they say. The terraces take on another dimension, the slopes seem even more imposing, and there are places along this stretch of river that, seen from the boat, look untouched, many of them reachable only this way.
It is also from the water that what goes unnoticed from above is revealed: the way the Douro and the Côa meet, and how their banks tell different stories. When they reach the mouth of the Côa, Alexandra and Fernando are before the meeting of two rivers and two worlds. On one side, the Douro, shaped over generations by people’s work in the vineyards and on the terraces. On the other, the Côa, with a wilder landscape and an archaeological heritage that reaches back thousands of years. Being there, between the two, makes you realise this is a territory far richer and more complex than any photograph can show.
And there is the silence. “A silence that is hard to find these days,” they say, one that completely changes the way the experience is lived. What most surprises those who step into the boat is often what cannot be photographed. The stillness, the feeling of having a river all to yourself, a freedom rarely experienced.
There is one place they are especially fond of, the Vale de Canivens bridge, where they usually stop before reaching the Côa Museum. You pass by boat beneath the old railway bridge, drop anchor calmly and, with a little luck, catch sight of some of the species that define this landscape, such as griffon vultures, the Egyptian vulture, Bonelli’s eagle, the golden eagle or the black stork. It is also a place where you can swim safely and try stand-up paddle, sheltered from the wind and the wake of other boats.
The trips are private and run in small groups, families or couples, and from that a rare intimacy is born. The contact is close, the conversation flows, and there is no set script. Every guest is different, so every trip is unique. Many of those who step into the boat end up becoming friends, to the point of inviting the couple to visit their cities and asking them to get in touch whenever they pass through.
From these trips come stories that Alexandra and Fernando hold dear. Once they took aboard a wine lover whose knowledge of the estates you sail past, and of the region’s history, was so great that the roles almost reversed, and for a while he seemed more like the guide. Later, the guest even sent them a guide he had put together to help them improve and grow. It is a memory they treasure, because it shows that they too learn from those who step into the boat.
On another of their early trips, with a group of Americans, the conversation flowed so freely that they all lost track of time. The visitors ended up missing the train that was to take them back to Régua, and it was the couple who drove them there. They were truly grateful, and for Alexandra and Fernando it became one of those moments you do not forget. It is from this closeness that what moves them most is born, the certainty that, out there, they create wonderful, memorable moments for those who visit them.
Wild River Tours is still a young project, and Alexandra and Fernando want to grow it and add new activities on the river. But there is one conviction that does not change, and that sounds like a manifesto for this territory. “This land does not need to be transformed to be valued. It needs to be better known.” That is why they make a point of working with the region’s producers, restaurants and guesthouses, in the belief that an experience worth having is one that leaves value where it happens. It is the same idea that binds the Wild Côa Network together.
For anyone who has never imagined seeing this territory from the water, their answer is simple. Come. The Douro Superior and the Côa seen from the river cannot be explained with photographs. You have to feel the river, hear the silence and see the slopes from another angle. And, for a few hours, stop looking at the river and start being part of it.
Wild River Tours is a member of the Wild Côa Network. Step aboard and come and discover the side of the Côa that can only be seen from within.
Interview and editing by Visit Greater Côa Valley.