Rabelo Boats Regatta 2025 - Porto Portugal

The people of Porto hold a huge celebration for the festival of São João (Saint John) on 23rd June. And by luck we were in Porto on the day after the festival, when the Rabelo Boat Regatta is held on the River Douro in the heart of the City. These shallow, flat bottom boats were originally used to transport the Port wine from the vineyards on the steep slopes of the extensive Douro River to the wineries in Porto, for ageing. These traditional boats were beginning to disappear by the early 1980s, so the Winery Brotherhood initiated the regatta, in which all of the major wineries are represented by their own boat each year.