Quinta do Merouço - Casa do Rio

Casa do Rio sits on the bank of the Douro at Quinta do Merouço, with a private dock and a boat slip — which puts it in a small category of Portuguese rental houses where arriving or leaving by water is a real option rather than a brochure line. Eight bedrooms, sixteen guests.

The pool and terrace face the river. Inside there is an indoor fireplace and the kind of living space a group of sixteen needs if the house is going to work over a week rather than a weekend. Beach essentials are provided for the river shore below.

The Douro here is wide and slow, and the far bank is terraced to the skyline. River cruises pass, port quintas sit within a short drive, and the landscape is the one UNESCO listed rather than a version of it seen from a distance. For a group that wants the river as the centre of the stay — swimming, boats, long afternoons on the bank — this is the address.