Casa Dos Varais, Manor House

Casa Dos Varais is a small family run hotel in the manor house of a Douro wine estate. The owners Joao and Ernestina live on site and are very welcoming and helpful. You feel like personal guests in their house. The house itself has been maintained in a historic style which really suits an old building like this. This is definately classy antique and not old and tired. During our stay we were able to tread the grapes in the estate winery (only possible at harvest obviously! first week of September this year) and have meals in the wine house and in the formal dining room of the house. Breakfast is provided, normally on a terrace in summer, with a good selection of breads and fruit from the estate gardens. There is no hotel restaurant as such, instead evening meals can be arranged specially for you. Ernestina will suggest menus to suit you and you can choose from venues including the old wine house and the formal dining room. The style is traditional Portuguese. We had three meals during our stay all of which were delicious and accompanied by the excellent wines produced on the estate. Wines are included in the meal prices you are quoted and this does not mean "all inclusive package" generic cheap wine, they are Joao's own wines. A personal highlight was a port from the 1980s which Joao shared with us at our final dinner. Away from the hotel the village of Regua is a short walk away. Regua has many restaurants, a good rail service up and down the Douro and the possibility of boat trips, there are very pleasant and well marked walking trails close by. The hotel is right on the road but we had no issues with noise, it is not a major route, the entrance to the parking is a little tight so take care on first arrival. In summary a stay here is a very sociable experience, there are very few guests so do not expect hundreds of staff and 24hr room service. Do expect personal attention from the hosts and staff. Ernestina and Joao both chatted to us each day about our plans and suggested places to see. We felt that we were members of a house party on an estate rather than merely customers.

Casa dos Varais is a family home dating from the 18 hundreds, which is open for guests. It is a special place which keeps traditions and beauty alive for its guests. The family runs the estate with its vineyard, orange trees and gardens. Guests have the opportunity to wander around, relax on the terrace overlooking the Douro valley, enjoying a glas of self produced wine or port and dive into a long passed time when taking part in the evening dinner. Definitely do not miss that dinner: It is home cooked, all guests come together around a big table in the old dinning room and the traditional French service is applied. Of course the dinner is accompanied by wines from the estate. A very special thank you to the lovely staff, who performs this service as an art! It is outstanding. I wish countless successful years for the estate with its owners and staff, thank you for opening your house to us travelers.

This place has a very nice location, however everything else about it is rotten, from the shabby fake furniture and fittings to the so called hospitality. We arrived an hour early to be told we were not welcome and made to sit outside and await our prescribed arrival time, no offer of even some water in the 38°C heat, I will explain in more detail shortly. The venue is advertised as hotel, but beware - it is, by their own description upon arrival; a private house and not a hotel at all and you shouldn't expect any sort of proper service that you would expect anywhere else. We were told at reception we could drop our bags and have a drink in their garden, however once we walked around to find the said garden we were greeted by a very aggressive and rude woman (whom we later found out owned the place) that we were not welcome and were quickly marched to the entrance of the property where she proceed to berate us, shout at us and talk over the top of us to make her point simply because we were an hour early. Outrageous behaviour by a deeply unpleasant woman that has no idea how to run a business in hospitality. The general attitude of this place is that you ought be grateful to be allowed to stay in their run down and filthy establishment. I will never return and I urge anyone else thinking of staying to avoid this place at all costs. The breakfast was very poor, the rooms falling to pieces with very worn out furniture of the most basic standard. The towels were old and scratchy and it was very difficult to arrange to even use an iron. Basically, this place is owned by people that think they are some sort of landed gentry; they even have some of their tacky regalia and costumes surrounded by drawings of themselves in the lobby, which I found very distasteful, laughable even. They only rent rooms to subsidise their lack of income it would seem, they do not want people in their "house". Beware! Even with all the aforementioned issues with this property, by far the biggest problem is the awful woman that owns it. I have rarely, if ever, come across such a person with such poor interpersonal skills, let alone hospitality skills. If this is the only place available, I suggest you sleep in your car, it is preferable