Mafra, Obidos, y Coimbra

On Sunday, we left Lisboa and started making our way back to Salamanca. On the way back to Sali, we stopped in three towns: Mafra, Óbidos, and Coimbra. Óbidos was by far my favorite, but all three have some important Portuguese landmarks.

Mafra, a small town just north of Lisboa, was our first stop. Mafra is best known for its Convento, a large baroque palace with a basilica. I'm personally not a big fan of Baroque architecture, and we ran out of things to see after about 15 minutes, but I still got some pictures of some of the sites.

A street near the central praça in Mafra (notice the traditional tiled buildings):

Erica and me in front of the Convento:



A cloister inside the Convento:



Complete with a Portugese snail:



We got kind of bored waiting for the bus to leave Mafra, and started taking some random pictures. This one's of me doing the peace sign...apparently in Spain if you give someone the peace sign backwards, you're actually flicking them off. Good to know!

After a few hours on the bus, our next stop was Óbidos. Óbidos is a small Portuguese town best known for the medieval walls that still surround the city (seemingly the Portuguese equivalent of Spanish Ávila, which I mentioned in some previous posts). The walls come together on top of a hill where a medieval castle rests, overlooking the city and surrounding countryside.

A street through Óbidos:



A small medieval street in Óbidos, with Bougainvillea overflowing from a building's wall:



One shop in Óbidos sold handmade birdhouses that were kind of cool:



And for a price, you can take a horse-drawn carriage ride around town:

I guess we hit Óbidos on a really good day, because they were having a Mercado Medieval near the castle. If you've ever been to a Medieval Fair in the United States, this was really similar...except everyone was speaking Portuguese and an actual medieval castle served as a backdrop. If we had just remembered to wear our medieval clothes, we could have gotten in for free....darn.

One section of the Mercado Medieval, with the castle as a backdrop:



There were booths all over the place selling medieval-inspired goods, like these shields, swords, and fairy wands for the girls:



They were also selling these pretty hair wreaths made out of dried flowers:









There was even a band playing...complete with Celtic bagpipes. It might surprise you that Northwestern Spain (known as Galicia) and Portugal actually have strong Celtic roots, due to the influx of Irish and Scottish settlers long ago:

The best part about the Mercado Medieval, however, was definitely the food. There were stands selling almost any type of food you could imagine, even one with a pig roasting on a spit! I wasn't sure what I wanted, until I found a booth that sold crêpes...I was sold.

The menu of crêpes and drinks available:



I got a Crepe Medieval, covered in açucar and canela (sugar and cinnamon). I was very excited about it:



My friends and I eating at the Fair:

Unfortunately, we couldn't stay long enough to watch a Justa, or Joust. Our next stop was Coimbra, a Portuguese university town 195 kilometers north of Lisbon, and about three hours due west of Salamanca. The University of Coimbra, Portugal's premier University, was founded in 1290 and is one of the oldest Universities in Europe. It's the oldest University in the Portuguese speaking world.

Unfortunately we weren't there long enough to really explore much, like I did last time I was there, but we still saw the most famous building and tower of the University:



There were peach trees growing nearby:



And more morning glories as well, growing in a gutter:

After Coimbra it was a straight shot back to Salamanca, and we got home around 11:30pm.

Pronto habrá cuentos de Andalucía (incluso Córdoba, Sevilla, y Granada), Asturias, y la vida nocturna de Salamanca. ¡Hasta luego!