We left Lisbon today bound for Obidos via Sintra. In Sintra we went for a tour around the palace. A cool little town which has two white, conical shaped towers, attached to the palace, which are a prominent feature of the town. As you walk through the Palace you soon discover that those two conical features are actually the kitchen chimneys. It is one very large kitchen, accustomed to catering for large parties, but I wouldn’t like to clean it. The Palace was built in the 10th Century and was the summer residence of the royal family, and is the sole survivor of the Royal Palaces from the middle ages. When you look at the countryside around here you can understand why they liked to spend time here, it is like an oasis of green after the parched earth around it.
We found a little café in town for lunch, we won’t say that it was a ‘nice little café’ because actually it wasn’t, but we weren’t to know that just yet. We were surprised to see a store owner from across the street hop into his car and drive off, apparently for lunch. Customers came and went, made enquiries at the nearby stores, and then came back an hour later when he had returned. Nothing in his store was moved, removed, or stolen. We couldn’t believe it, but similar to other things that we have witnessed whilst in Portugal. It is like an expectation of honesty, it is nice.
As we were returning to our car we were enticed into a museum by someone that we had no understanding of. It was the natural history museum, very interesting, very cool and worth a visit, after all it is free.
The drive from here to Obidus was through an endless procession of small unremarkable towns, becoming bored with looking at the backends of the street of trucks heading in the same direction. However there was one small town that got our attention. They seemed to be in the process of putting up some very solid looking barricades all down the main street. We wondered what was going on, until we saw where they were leading to … the Bullring. We can only guess that they run the bulls down the street.
Our accommodation for tonight is about 3kms out of town and it is absolute magic. Our hostess Zita and her friend Carla made it a like a home away from home. It seems we were the only guests and we had the whole house available to use. They were friendly, welcoming, and made us feel like we were real friends. It really was magic. We started by having a quiet wine and watching the sun go down, but as one thing led to another, more bottles of wine and then they insisted that we shared dinner with them. Our conversations all the important issues like Portugal’s past, present and future, its place in the EU, politics, wine, music and particularly Fado. We tried to solve all the problems of the world but we weren’t entirely successful, however the conversation was very, very interesting. They even told us that NZ English is beautiful to listen to, that was after a few wines so that may just have been flattery. If anyone out there is thinking of going to Obidos, this is one place that we would definitely recommend.
We found a little café in town for lunch, we won’t say that it was a ‘nice little café’ because actually it wasn’t, but we weren’t to know that just yet. We were surprised to see a store owner from across the street hop into his car and drive off, apparently for lunch. Customers came and went, made enquiries at the nearby stores, and then came back an hour later when he had returned. Nothing in his store was moved, removed, or stolen. We couldn’t believe it, but similar to other things that we have witnessed whilst in Portugal. It is like an expectation of honesty, it is nice.
As we were returning to our car we were enticed into a museum by someone that we had no understanding of. It was the natural history museum, very interesting, very cool and worth a visit, after all it is free.
The drive from here to Obidus was through an endless procession of small unremarkable towns, becoming bored with looking at the backends of the street of trucks heading in the same direction. However there was one small town that got our attention. They seemed to be in the process of putting up some very solid looking barricades all down the main street. We wondered what was going on, until we saw where they were leading to … the Bullring. We can only guess that they run the bulls down the street.
Our accommodation for tonight is about 3kms out of town and it is absolute magic. Our hostess Zita and her friend Carla made it a like a home away from home. It seems we were the only guests and we had the whole house available to use. They were friendly, welcoming, and made us feel like we were real friends. It really was magic. We started by having a quiet wine and watching the sun go down, but as one thing led to another, more bottles of wine and then they insisted that we shared dinner with them. Our conversations all the important issues like Portugal’s past, present and future, its place in the EU, politics, wine, music and particularly Fado. We tried to solve all the problems of the world but we weren’t entirely successful, however the conversation was very, very interesting. They even told us that NZ English is beautiful to listen to, that was after a few wines so that may just have been flattery. If anyone out there is thinking of going to Obidos, this is one place that we would definitely recommend.
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