Óbidos, Nazaré, and Conímbriga

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The weather this past weekend was the best it has been in a few weeks, so we rented a car and took a little road trip. On Saturday, we went with a few American friends from Lindsay’s class to a town called Óbidos, which was holding its annual chocolate festival. We also went to see the beaches in nearby Nazaré. On Sunday Lindsay and I went to Conímbriga, a Roman ruins about 20 minutes from Coimbra.

This was our first time driving in Portugal and we were a little apprehensive, but the toll highways were great (although a little bit expensive) and people drove more conservatively than we expected. I drove like a good foreigner and only went 10 kph over the speed limit, which made us one of the slower cars. My only real complaint was that people seem to think tailgating is fun here.

Óbidos is a small town about an hour and a half south of Coimbra. It has kind of a medieval layout and is walled, and has a castle and a church at one end. The town was full of chocolate festival activities on Saturday, some better than others. The good part was that all of the shops and stands in town were selling chocolate everything: cakes, truffles, dipped fruits, liqueurs, and almost everything else chocolaty you could imagine, a lot of it homemade. The less exciting part was the vendor tents they had set up to sell Nestle chocolate bars and more pre-packaged kind of stuff. One of our favorite things in Óbidos was walking through the town and along the top of the town wall. From the top of the wall there was a cool view over the town and to the countryside.

On the way back to Coimbra we stopped in Nazaré, which is a popular beach resort during the summer. The water is warm and bright blue and there is a cool cliff along the north side of the beach with a church and some markets selling wool fishermen’s sweaters. We didn’t stay long, just enough time to walk on the beach, have coffee in town, and check out the view.

On Sunday, Lindsay and I went to Conímbriga, which is the site of one of the best-preserved Roman ruins in Portugal. We saw the ruins of baths, temples, fountains, and our favorite part, houses with ornate mosaic floors, many of which have been restored and are almost complete. Lindsay’s favorite part of Sunday was stopping at the grocery store on the way home and not having to lug everything back by hand (we bought lots of heavy things.)

- Jason

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