It’s Not All Beaches!

We had a cracker of a storm last night, with lots of thunder, lightning and heavy rain.  It was lovely and cosy inside the van though.
It was a bit chilly when we set off for our destination of ‘somewhere down south’, however by the time we had our Macca’s stop, had a cup of coffee, posted the blog and checked our emails etc the sun was out.
So there we were cruising along at 90ks when El said “that place over there looks interesting” cos she could see a fort like structure on top of a hill.  A swift turn to starbord and we were there!

Also there was an Aire stopping place for motorhomes so we quickly emptied the nasties and filled the water tank. There were a couple of Froggie motorhomes plus a Belgian one but once again there were no Poms to be found.

By now it was a bit on the warm side again, so we gave the dogs a good drenching on the service point … just to keep them cool while we went for a walk  …

Just outside the parking area was the Portuguese HS2 rail link to Lisbon … apparently they started building it nearly 800 years ago and it still isn't finished!

Elaine was now in full summer mode - summer dress, sunglasses, hat and jaunty scarf.

So we had stopped at a place called Obidos, and what a place it was!  This was the entrance to the walled town …

The wall runs all the way around the town …

The town itself was a maze of little cobbled streets …

It was a great place so we explored every nook and cranny …

The church was built in 1251!  About the same time as they started on the railway!

There we even a few people about today!  We even picked up the sounds of a couple of English voices.

The Crocs had a good work out (crocs on tour) …

This part of the fort is now a hotel …

The dogs enjoyed the cooling breeze whilst resting on the battlements.

You can walk all the way around the wall, the problem is that in places it is only a couple of feet wide, and if you slip it’s goodnight Irene!  There’s none of this namby pamby OHS here I can tell ya.  Elaine bottled out, saying that she had too many nightmares along those lines, so I took Sammie for a walk a bit further and quickly bottled out myself …there is bugger all to hold onto and as I said its a bloody long way down!

There were some lovely views from the top of the hill …

Sammie was still looking for rats!

After walking around for a couple of hours it was time for a rest …

There on the right of the pic are a couple walking the wall, and that's not even the high bit!

Elaine was enthralled by a chap playing a Caribbean steel drum gone wrong (called a hang drum apparently) … she even bought his CD.

This is where all the old Webber BBQs end up!

I had a peep inside the church, it was a bit wow!

At last time to lay down the hat, take off the sunnies, have a beer and cuddle Sammie …

This place was just awesome.

We stopped off at a bakery to buy some very fresh bread and a sweet cake / bread that will apparently last for 6 months …

And here is yours truly eating his lovely bread, stuffed with chorizo!

Once back at base the froggies had gone so we nicked the prime posi under the tree.

Whilst I was having a little nap, Elaine and Bombo were deciding where to go tomorrow!  The pen is pointing at our current location, we only went about 40ks today.
    
Two days ago was our wedding anniversary but today was our first date anniversary … 19 years ago.  So tonight we decided to go out for a nice dinner in the walled town.  We ordered a couple of main courses plus a couple of drinks, but they also bought out entrees of Prawns, Chorizo, Bread, Pate and Cheese plus our main courses of sea bass and salted codfish.  I still don't quite know how come we ended up with the extras, but they charged for the lot!  We couldn't really complain as we ate the lot, plus bought the remainder home for the doggies.  All up it came to 46 Euros rather than the approx 30 Euros we were expecting … we will have to read the small print in future but it is a bit hard when most of it is in Portuguese!
Tomorrow we should be in the Lisbon area unless we spot another little gem on the way.