GROHE — PORTO TO LISBOA, FIELD NOTES

We were invited by GROHE—with the trip kindly moderated by The Design Ambassador—for three days of making, tasting, and talking water. GROHE is a leading global brand for complete bathroom solutions and kitchen fittings, part of the LIXIL family since 2014; you feel that blend of German engineering and global perspective in everything they do.

PORTO — THE DOURO & THE LODGES
We began in Porto, where the river is the city’s long, glittering sentence. A late-afternoon cruise took us along the Douro River, gliding under the six bridges—Dom Luís I, Infante, D. Maria Pia, São João, Freixo, and Arrábida—each a different chapter of steel, concrete, and span. The rabelo boats roll slightly; the light bounces off tile and granite; the twin banks (Porto and Vila Nova de Gaia) trade views.

 

We crossed into Vila Nova de Gaia to visit Graham’s Lodge (1890), a hillside warren of casks and quiet air where port ages and conversations slow down. The tasting looked over the river gorge—city on one side, cellars on the other—an elegant pause between bridges and factory floors.

ALBERGARIA — WHERE THE MAKING HAPPENS
Next morning we drove south toward Albergaria-a-Velha, home to one of LIXIL’s most modern sites producing exclusively for GROHE. The tour moved line-to-line: raw components, precision machining, metrology checks, and final assembly. Two things stayed with us: the obsession with zero-defect tolerance, and the finish quality delivered by PVD (Physical Vapour Deposition)—a vacuum process that bonds a thin film to the surface, making it up to 3× harder and as much as 10× more scratch-resistant than standard chrome or electro-plated stainless steel. In person, the colors read both technical and warm; in the hand, they feel built for decades.

LISBOA — HILLS, MUSIC, NIGHT AIR
By evening we were in Lisboa—rooftops stepping down to the Tagus, dinner with a view, and then a slow walk through the city’s night scene where a doorway of ao vivo music pulled us in for one more song before the hills pulled us back out. The next morning we visited the GROHE Showroom in Lisbon for a full sweep of collections—finishes, mixers, thermostats—seen together as a system rather than one-off objects. Then: airport, Athens, inboxes. (The good kind of tired.)

NOTES ON HOSPITALITY
Portugal fed us beautifully (we were never hungry or thirsty), and GROHE’s team matched it with generous hosting—the kind where you’re learning without realizing you’re “in a session.” The through line—from river bridges to factory lines to showroom lines—was precision meeting place.

THANK YOU
With warm thanks to The Design Ambassador for moderating, to GROHE for hosting, and to the wonderful people we met along the way—it was a pleasure to share the trip with you.