
Day three was a day trip to Òbidos and Nazaré. Both are a bit north of Lisbon. Òbidos is a walled medieval town dating back to the 12th century. Narrow cobblestone streets, very old houses and shops. It was a beautiful small community with a fairy tale atmosphere.


We found great souvenir shops (we bought some cork placemats) and just enjoyed walking up and down the hilly town. We also had Ginja de Òbidos, which is a sweet cherry liquer served in an edible chocolate cup. I’m not usually one for ultra-sweet liquers, but it was very good.

After visiting, we headed north to Nazaré. This is an area on the Atlantic coast famous for 100 foot waves and surfing at Praia do Norte. It became famous when Garrett McNamara surfed a 78 foot wave. We were a bit early in the season for the huge waves, but saw a couple of surfers. The high waves are the result of a large underwater canyon.

The Fort of São Miguel Arcaño lighthouse is an iconic symbol and a great viewpoint.

We went in to the actual town of Nazaré for lunch and had some seafood dishes, one of which was a seafood stew. Frankly, it was nothing to write home about. Not a lot of spice or flavor. We are used to foods that have a lot of flavor and spice. We were going to find the lack of robust food flavors is common in Portugal.

We headed back to Lisbon to meet up with our small tour group and begin the actual “organized” tour. This was the tour agents first trip to Portugal and was kind of a reconnaissance mission. So we were guinea pigs in a sense, which we knew going into it.
Back at our hotel, we had a welcome wine and dinner meet and greet. Most of the group had traveled together before to Italy and France. This was the first adventure to Portugal.