Obidos- The Walled City

We took an all day bus tour through the countryside outside of Lisbon. First stop was a city called Obidos. Obidos in Latin means, “fortified walls” which describes this city exactly. Obidos was completely surrounded by fortified walls just like something out of medieval times. After being taken over from the Moors, the city was established in 1148 by the  first king of Portugal. In 1210, the town of Obidos was given as a wedding present from King Alfonso II to his queen. This set a precedence for the royal marriages to come and Obidos became known as “Queen’s Village”.

The architecture of the town is pretty plain and simple. Whitewashed walls, one color stripe accent, tile roofs, and cobblestone streets are the basic elements. The town is very quaint and has become a favorite tourist attraction among the area.

Because of its favorable climate, many vine plants like these are a common sight all throughout Portugal. They just grow up the sides of old buildings. Isn’t it absolutely gorgeous and how neat to have this growing outside your home! Obidos is known for making a cherry liquer called ginjinha (jing jing a) and it is served in chocolate cups here! Very delicious! Well that is basically all I have to SAY about Obidos, we unfortunately didn’t get much time here, only about 45 minutes to shop, drink the ginjinha, and take photos! So, here is what I captured: ENJOY!!

Okay, I lied. I have one more thing to say about Obidos! The castle remained a residence up until around the 16th century. Today the castle has been converted to a hotel! How cool is that!? I wish we would have had time to go inside and see what it looks like!

Thieves Market and Castle

So I finally got some time so here is an update, finally Day Two! I am only two days behind, LOL.  Day Two started out with us taking the trolley up the hill towards the Castle at the top of the hill. The trolley reminded me of the ones in San Francisco but not as classy. It was muggy and hot that day and let me tell you being shoved against a bunch of people on the trolley was not a fun experience. After a while though the people cleared out and I was able to take a seat and enjoy the breeze and the views! We stopped at the Thieves Market which was like a HUGE flea market with a bunch of vendors selling jewelry, clothing,  and every other thing you could possibly imagine. There was literally people there who gathered their random junk and came to sell it, but overall it was very cool! The Thieves Market took place behind this church:

This lady was selling tablecloths whom my cousin Linda has bought from the past three times she has visited Portugal. She was so nice and so accommodating! She even ran to her car to get more tablecloths for us to go through. It’s hard trying to find the right one! 😛 She also had one of the nicer set-ups of most of the vendors at the Thieves Market.

This is the trolley we took up to the Thieves Market and Castle. And it is totally a symbol for Lisbon. There is t-shirts, paintings, post cards, etc. that have the trolley all over the city on them.

View of Lisbon from this plaza outside a church we stumbled across trying to find the castle. Isn’t it beautiful!? Look at all those tile roofs!

This is the church we stumbled across…. Nice surprise eh!? Look at the detailing in the architecture! It is amazing.

So we stumbled across the church while we were trying to find our way to the castle so we needed to really find our way to the Castle. It was quite a little adventure and quite a walk, uphill when it is humid and warm! Took some photos while we were walking..

Everyone, and I mean everyone dries their laundry this way. I loved  this one! The white house, white and blue laundry, and it is arranged long to short! 🙂

There are plants like this growing all over the city. Gorgeous! This was outside this amazing jewelry store we found on our way to the Castle.

A view of the Castle from the church we stumbled across. It was built by the Moors in the 11th century.

The castle was amazing. It had several false entrances and other effective defense techniques. We got to wander all around, walk up to the towers, through the inner courtyard, and all along the defensive walls. The towers lent for some amazing views!!

Late Night Madness

Here are some highlights from the first night’s dinner and walk home. We def. had an adventure. Didn’t get in until almost 2 AM after being up for forever! I am behind of editing so you will just have to deal with UNEDITED photos!!! But at least you all can see what I’ve been doing and what it looks like here!! It is SO amazing! I love it here!

Our Sangria we ordered with dinner, DELICIOUS!

This was a ceviche salad with octopus! It was FANTASTIC!!

This was the window of our restaurant. This is very common for restaurants to have display windows with seafood, etc. in it!

This is the restaurant we ate. It was very good and def. a place where locals go. There is also an amazing purse store across the street! Check out the sidewalks!! It is like that EVERYWHERE!!

I love this! Random statue in an alley on the walk back to the hotel! 😛

HOW ROMANTIC IS THIS!? It looks exactly like this EVERYWHERE!

Random alley art.

Made a pit stop for wine on the way home! 🙂

View from our balcony at night! 🙂

Welp, that is it for now folks! It is close to 2:30 AM!!! I am SOOO behind on loading photos! We have just been going and going, no time to stop and be on here! Love you all and miss you!!