We were taken on a tour of the castle by the owner’s son, Peter (Pedro), which was brilliant. As they have made wine since time immemorial, he was able to show us some of the old wine barrels used in the trade. And they were absolutely enormous! Apparently, they are the only ones with sufficient room to retain these old barrels for historical purposes – others broke them up and used the wood for fuel.

Slightly smaller barrels were housed in another large room, along with real, live bats!! Small ones but living, breathing ones, nevertheless! Got a bit of a fright when they flew out from the corner of the room; we had obviously disturbed them. Peter assured us that they wouldn’t do any harm. I kept a close eye on them just in case…

In another section of the castle, there was a knight in shining armour, which, according to Peter, walks around late at night! Rykersaurus was not the least bit perturbed by this information. He had braved the room with the bats, after all.