Lodging in Douro Valley

He covers a number of places in his Portugal guidebook.

I don't know what Rick recommends, but we stayed at the In Patio Guesthouse in Porto. It was fantastic, the very best B and B we have ever used.

Great location, nice facilities, great breakfasts and very nice helpful owners.

Thank you, geovagriffith. InPatio must really be something because everyone recommends them. That's good to know. Do you happen to know of a place to stay further up the Douro Valley, like around Vila Real? We are thinking of visiting this area before heading down to Porto for our stay there and our return to Lisbon for our flight home.
Thank you again for taking the time to respond.
firislander

Firislander,

Sorry, we did a 7 day cruise on the Douro and didn't research hotels.

Consider Paso de Regua
https://www.booking.com/searchresults.html?aid=306742;label=msn-gtWqIPwMMYZy4tUBVhX44g-15773518625%3Atikwd-16300064828%3Aneo%3Amte%3Adec%3Aqsregua+portugal;sid=5a16360974f915c0e69c5342b26b1c4f;city=-2172329;keep_landing=1;redirected=1;src=city;utm_campaign=Portugal;utm_medium=cpc;utm_source=bing;utm_term=gtWqIPwMMYZy4tUBVhX44g;ptlrs=1

Also Pinhao

https://www.booking.com/searchresults.html?aid=306742&label=msn-gtWqIPwMMYZy4tUBVhX44g-15773518625%3Atikwd-16300064828%3Aneo%3Amte%3Adec%3Aqsregua+portugal&sid=5a16360974f915c0e69c5342b26b1c4f&sb=1&src=searchresults&src_elem=sb&error_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.booking.com%2Fsearchresults.html%3Faid%3D306742%3Blabel%3Dmsn-gtWqIPwMMYZy4tUBVhX44g-15773518625%253Atikwd-16300064828%253Aneo%253Amte%253Adec%253Aqsregua%2520portugal%3Bsid%3D5a16360974f915c0e69c5342b26b1c4f%3Bcity%3D-2172329%3Bclass_interval%3D1%3Bdtdisc%3D0%3Binac%3D0%3Bindex_postcard%3D0%3Blabel_click%3Dundef%3Bmih%3D0%3Boffset%3D0%3Bpostcard%3D0%3Bptlrs%3D1%3Bredirected%3D1%3Broom1%3DA%252CA%3Bsb_price_type%3Dtotal%3Bsrc%3Dcity%3Bss_all%3D0%3Bssb%3Dempty%3Bsshis%3D0%26%3B&ss=Pinhão%2C+Norte+Region%2C+Portugal&ssne=Peso+da+Régua&ssne_untouched=Peso+da+Régua&city=-2172329&checkin_month=&checkin_monthday=&checkin_year=&checkout_month=&checkout_monthday=&checkout_year=&room1=A%2CA&no_rooms=1&group_adults=2&group_children=0&ss_raw=Pinhao&ac_position=0&ac_langcode=en&dest_id=-2172517&dest_type=city&search_pageview_id=f13b656af3b2000a&search_selected=true&search_pageview_id=f13b656af3b2000a&ac_suggestion_list_length=5&ac_suggestion_theme_list_length=0

We can also recommend Pinhao in the Douro Valley. We stayed at Hotel Douro which at that time was on booking.com. It appears they are no longer there but they are reviewed on tripadivsor. We can highly recommend this hotel. FYI, there is a Hotel Douro Inn located in another town so if you check into Hotel Douro be sure it's in Pinhao.