History
The name, Latinized Durius, may have come from the Celtic tribes that inhabited the area before Roman times: the Celtic root is *dubro- and in modern Welsh dŵr is "water" with cognate dobhar in Irish.
The Douro vinhateiro, an area of the Douro Valley in Portugal, has been classified by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. Traditionally, the wine was taken down river in flat-bottom boats called rabelos to be stored in barrels in cellars in Vila Nova de Gaia, just across the river from Porto. In the 1950s and 1960s, dams were built along the river ending this river traffic on Spanish and border sections. Now Port wine is transported in tanker trucks.
Read more about this topic: Douro
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