Day 34: Lisbon to Coimbra via Óbidos

Disclaimer: All voyages in this blog are being taken safely in the comfort of our imaginations - based on our plans and intentions for travel in 2020. What is reality after all? 

The drive from Lisbon to Coimbra isn't very long, so we needed to make it longer ... any excuse to go to Óbidos again.  This walled town is a tourist favourite - but we also remember meeting a local band there, in a bar set in the walls somewhere.  Not this time.

It was a really quick look around the old town, while keeping an eye on the car, but we managed to climb a bit of the walls:

and get a good panoramic view over the town:

The steps up the walls are pretty precipitate:

but the views into the quaint streets are worth it:

We'd arranged however, that we'd have some lunch less than a kilometre from the old town, near the  Santuário do Senhor Jesus da Pedra.

This church has a unique hexagonal construction, with some amazing details inside, such as the parquet flooring that matches the multiple angles. The main altar is built of marble in many different colours, and has a couple of major columns that are twisted a bit to accommodate the angles. It also has a large tiled fresco.

But the real attraction is that the restaurant is right across the square:

so we could keep an eye on the car - and the church - so that neither could get up to any funny business:

After a pleasant lunch:

we pushed on to Coimbra, with some trepidation about driving in narrow and vertical streets and finding impossible parking. But we needn't have worried, as our accommodation hosts met us and led us to parking near the market:

The apartment is up the hill from there (Coimbra seems all hill ... we'll need to get used to this!) and is on a narrow street that is impassable by cars. This is an old-world accommodation, straight out of grandma's time. Off the street, is a hallway:

and rooms come off this.  There's a small but functional kitchen, with somewhere to sit and write this blog:

two bedrooms (we chose this one, and the other was then locked off):

and an equally old-world bathroom:

Oh, and did we mention that there's a balcony:

with a view over this part of the town (this is the Manga cloister - with a coffee shop and restaurant, right near the market):

While there was still time, we wandered down the hill again to the said market and did some shopping:

and then caught the 2-stage lift/funicula up the hill again:

This is a luxury, but one we could get used to.  It brings us higher up the hill than our apartment - but from that point it's then walking down hill back home. We paused at the top of the funicular part, to look back over our section of the town:

A little later, we headed out through the local streets:

and down to the lower area again (accessed by following our street down hill): 

and found a corner restaurant that looked pleasant:

where we had some moderate food:

but still no banana split:

By the time we had eaten, night was falling: 

so we dragged our bodies up the hill, and spent a pleasant long evening on our balcony looking over the lights as darkness fell:

We'll spend a couple of days here, exploring old sites (the University, maybe Conimbriga as a day trip) and discovering new corners of this attractive city.