Hotel Rural Casa Dos Viscondes da Varzea

We visited Hotel Rural Casa dos Viscondes da Varzea for lunch as a shore trip from an Amawaterways river cruise on the Duoro. We were met by Maria - who welcomed and greeted everyone as her family. An amazing lady, an awesome property, a delicious lunch served in first class style. To have stayed longer would not have been long enough - it was a wonderful experience. I thoroughly recommend a visit for as long as you can arrange. Thank you Maria for an amazing and unforgettable Portuguese experience - love and all good wishes to you for your future.

I'm writing a negative review, which I don't usually do, because I was very upset to see my friends (who held their wedding at Hotel Rural Casa dos Viscondes da Varzea) so stressed and upset through the wedding due to the owner, knowingly, double booking their event. My friends had booked the venue for 3 days with full exclusivity - but on arrival the prior wedding guests were still there, and they were told they were refusing to leave their rooms. Later they found out that they had legitimately booked - but the venue put the blame on the guests. We even saw people on the morning of the wedding day, and because the hotel rooms had been double booked, the groom had nowhere to get ready! Personally, I had to stay in another room, 5 mins drive at the other end of the winery which was a bit of an inconvenience, the room was pretty worn down and I found a bug in the bed. Additionally, on the first day day, 3 coach loads of people arrived for a private dinner in another part of the venue - apparently this has been a weekly event since January, but the venue did not tell my friends or re-negotiated the exclusivity. The wedding day itself was beautiful, and I felt very sorry for the staff as they were really nice and must put up with a lot of complaints due to the way the venue i s run. The day after the wedding, they were still meant to have exclusivity, but guests arrived for the following wedding. Which put a bit of a dampner on the pool party they had booked, with unexpected strangers hanging around. One of the main reasons I'm writing this review is because of the way the hotel managed this - they continually lied and made excuses to my friends, which I think made it worse for them. And when sitting down to renegotiate the price and get a partial refund - the owner had the audacity to laugh at them! It is very hard to see one of your closest friends cry on the days that are meant to be the happiest and I think that the owners should significantly recompense my friends for the stress they put them through.

Lovely place but they double booked for my friends’ wedding causing so much stress. Not to be trusted for important events. Some guests were in rooms far away and couldn’t walk to and from the property. This meant they couldn’t use the facilities.