We said good bye to our hostess today, and we were a little sad that it had to be so brief. Hopefully one day we will get to meet again. This really has been a fantastic place to stay and we feel that it will be one of the highlights of our trip. One of the places that will be remembered.
We spent some time in Obidos this morning. A fantastic little walled city that was deemed so pretty by Dom Dinis that he gave it to his wife Dona Isabel as a wedding present. We were only here for a few hours and it was time to see everything. We walked the circumference of the city on the top of the city wall, and then walked through the city looking at the white houses edged in blue of yellow Ochre. The main street through is lined with souvenir shops and not much else, which is a giveaway that this is on the tour bus route.
If the city wall was located in NZ if would definitely be a forbidden zone and a ‘Health and Safety’ nightmare. The path around the top is about 1200mm wide, a continuous trip hazard, with the ramparts on one side of you and a vertical drop on the other with no barriers at all. It is certainly safe enough, and there are signs saying that ‘concentration is required at all times’, but you can just imagine what would happen with the red tape in NZ.
From here it was a straight run through to Porto. Checked into the hotel, which we found without too much trouble (that makes a pleasant change), and then headed out on foot to orient ourselves. One of the bridges over the river is another Eiffel creation and it shows. Another Meccano job. We got a little waylaid and ended up trying to find some dinner before everything closed down. We thought we had found somewhere cheap and cheerful, but we didn’t discover until after we had been served that the dishes that sounded so appealing were actually various forms of offal, and even then not very well cooked. I don’t think there was anything in the house that wasn’t some form of offal. Hmmm … the perils of ordering unknown items, in a foreign language, without a menu. All we need is some of that fine Port to wash it down. On the plus side Portugal won against Malta (4-0) in the football tonight so everyone seems happy.
We spent some time in Obidos this morning. A fantastic little walled city that was deemed so pretty by Dom Dinis that he gave it to his wife Dona Isabel as a wedding present. We were only here for a few hours and it was time to see everything. We walked the circumference of the city on the top of the city wall, and then walked through the city looking at the white houses edged in blue of yellow Ochre. The main street through is lined with souvenir shops and not much else, which is a giveaway that this is on the tour bus route.
If the city wall was located in NZ if would definitely be a forbidden zone and a ‘Health and Safety’ nightmare. The path around the top is about 1200mm wide, a continuous trip hazard, with the ramparts on one side of you and a vertical drop on the other with no barriers at all. It is certainly safe enough, and there are signs saying that ‘concentration is required at all times’, but you can just imagine what would happen with the red tape in NZ.
From here it was a straight run through to Porto. Checked into the hotel, which we found without too much trouble (that makes a pleasant change), and then headed out on foot to orient ourselves. One of the bridges over the river is another Eiffel creation and it shows. Another Meccano job. We got a little waylaid and ended up trying to find some dinner before everything closed down. We thought we had found somewhere cheap and cheerful, but we didn’t discover until after we had been served that the dishes that sounded so appealing were actually various forms of offal, and even then not very well cooked. I don’t think there was anything in the house that wasn’t some form of offal. Hmmm … the perils of ordering unknown items, in a foreign language, without a menu. All we need is some of that fine Port to wash it down. On the plus side Portugal won against Malta (4-0) in the football tonight so everyone seems happy.
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