Monasteries and overnight in Obidos

Finished packing up this morning and headed out around 9AM. First shocker of the day was paying for parking, we knew it was coming, but still hard to fork out 71.00 Euro for parking your car and never using it! Andre debated saying he lost the ticket to see what the charge was, but we're just too honest I guess.

Found our way out of town after a couple of tries, not nearly as busy as coming into town but I missed the entrance to the bridge Andre wanted me to take, oh well one more trip around narrow cobblestone streets for practice for the rest of the week. Found the highway and the traffic coming into town was stopped for miles, must have been an accident. I felt very sorry for anyone trying to get into Porto today, you would have been hours in the traffic jam.

First stop today was about 1.5 hours outside Porto at a Monastery in Batalha. Another world heritage site, and very impressive again. The King of Portugal had made prayers to the Virgin Mary in the late 1300's promising that if the Portuguese defeated the Spanish in the war he would build a Monastery, the Portuguese won, and he fulfilled his promise and had this built. This is the first example of stained glass in a Church in Portugal as well, very impressive. The entrance to the Church is all carvings of the Apostles leading to Jesus, so much detail! Another first, is King John, the King that had the monastery commissioned, is buried here with his wife in a spectacular tomb, it is the first time that a man and woman had been buried together in the same tomb. This is also where Prince Henry the Navigator is buried, he established the Portuguese Navy. Another interesting thing about this place was the unfinished chapels. The King that commissioned these died prematurely, and they have been worked on a little over the centuries but have never been finished, and I am sure never will be now. The King and his wife have a tomb here, but I am sure when he started this it was not meant to be open to the elements, and have pigeons landing on it!

Monastery in Batalha

Entrance

First stained glass windows in Portugal

From here we moved on to another town with another monastery. This time we are in Alcobaca, where there were once 900 monks living. This Church is so impressive in size from the outside, but very plain in ornament compared to some we have seen. The Church was built between 1180 and 1250. This monastery you could still visit the dormitory and the kitchen, which we couldn't earlier today. Again this is another World Heritage Site, and very impressive, but unfortunately after visiting Tomar we found both this morning a little disappointing, though still a good day. We bought a little map at this site and saw that there was a Chapel of Exile outside the Church around the back so decided to try to find it. We circled around the Church, boy they need to get some more monks put to work to do some cleaning up of the yard, really kind of a mess. As we wandered around back here we came across a little Portuguese man that invited us in to a building that had an exhibition of camera pictures in it. This was really fun, they were showing the comparison between the Azores and mainland Portugal. The really fun part was this sweet old man followed us around to every picture and explained them to us, all in Portuguese. Yep, we got about every 30's word because it was a little like French or Spanish and we could look at the picture and figure it out. I think we may have been his only visit that day. Andre signed the guest book when we left and it had been 2 days since the last entry. He insisted on us taking a brochure with us, a nice printed brochure all in Portuguese, I think he was really happy to get rid of one. Kind of made our day ( and probably his), if they would clean up the area a bit and make it more inviting I'm sure more would go back there. There was no trash around, just not a nice path or road to walk in.

Daycare in Alcobaca

Alcobaca monastery

Kitchen

Next off we decided we had enough of church, monastery and city visits and headed to the coast. We drove to Peniche, which Andre thought was going to be the size of Shediac, but surprise it is a pretty big city. We pulled into a parking spot pretty much when we first were arriving into town as we could see there were dunes lining the road. This actually used to be an Island, and is a walled city,the sand has built up so much it is no longer an Island. They have some nice boardwalks to avoid walking on the dunes, and we were able to watch some surfers and nice breakers. We walked the beach for about an hour down to the city walls and back, lots of salt in the air. There was also a fish plant here, kind of reminded us of the smells at home. We then got back in the car and traveled around the shore to Cabo Carvoeiro and did a loop back to where we started, very pretty sites.

Stoplights attached to machinery, no signal person required

Dunes in Peniche

Peniche

From here we decided it was time to call it a day and headed to Obidos for the night. We had no reservation anywhere, but since we are so off season no problem finding somewhere to spend the night. We have ended up at a little pension for 40 Euro per night, it is so nice and clean, I wish we were here the next 3 nights, I love the smell. This town is another walled town, but really small and really touristy. The big thing they are know for here is cherry brandy (20% alcohol) served in tiny little chocolate cups. These are called Ginginha, yummy, I was barely into town when I had my first one, 1 Euro each, right now I could sure have another one. We wandered around town, looked at the little shops, checked out the restaurants, climbed the wall, another scary wall, and now are at supper. 

Town of Obidos, very narrow cobblestone streets, this is the main street!

Cherry brandy served in chocolate cups, very yummy!

Tomorrow we head off to Lisbon, another big city. We plan on starting the day in Sintra, but who knows where the GPS will take us... Today we spent .50 Euro just to make a stupid U turn because the GPS did not know the road, or maybe I missed a turn, or maybe Andre told me not to take the turn, who knows....