The walled town of Óbidos is a fairy tale or romantic scene of Almeida Garrett. His charm is so irresistible that, in 1282 King Dinis Don was offered as a wedding present to his wife, the queen received the Portuguese as a mark of love. The city was devastated by the earthquake of 1755 and lost much of its heritage, but the beauty is that, like true love, can however, just because they enter the Porta da Vila, coated tiles XVIII, to take one of happiness that awaits us inside. Above the arch, take a road that descends and feel the emotion of the time stopped, as if the centuries had long passed, leaving everything in place as ever. In its cobbled streets, white houses with blue edges or radiant yellow edging decorated with wisteria, geraniums and bougainvillea. The steep slide in multiple stores pottery and porcelain, embroidery and lace.

From the castle watchtower XVI outside of the aqueduct of the village and hills of vineyards that produce good wines, such as Quinta das Cerejeira, Quinta de São Francisco or Gaeiras. When Alonso Henriques won the seat from the Moors in 1148, he was glad the blood and built Cruzeiro da Memoria wine and encouraged the activity in Óbidos.

A gap caresses the foot of this hill which was castro Celtiberians, commercial station of the Phoenicians and Visigothic enclave until the Arabs drew the current house, the walls and the castle. The motor boats are forbidden to navigation by water from the brackish lagoon of Óbidos, and perhaps this is a rich nursery for fish. Is checked with a caldeiradas da lagoa and rubalo (bass), then a transfer ginginha, a cherry liqueur. On top of the treasure, the castle is now a pousada Manueline doors. One pass with that dares to compete Senhora das Rainha House, a hotel attached to the wall. There is a tower deluxe room with a marvelous view of the Shrine do Senhor Jesus da Pedra. All rooms are named after a Portuguese queen in the restaurant offering seafood and roast lamb with herbs and rice. With the first taste can be a Fifth St. Francisco white meat with a Sanguinhal 2004 from his nose reveals the cunning of the strains of cabernet sauvignon and syrah that I will deliver in the mouth.

Buildings with vegetation cover
West of the West Sea winded, but on this side of the border, the traditional architecture speaks on good terms with the new proposals of 23 architects, almost all Portuguese, who built in Bom Sucesso, a parish of Óbidos, 600 chalets, a hotel and a shopping and services that are offered as a reference in contemporary architecture. Álvaro Siza, David Chipperfield, Gonzalo Byrne, Moura Souto and Josep Llinás rosettes are giving luster to the Bom Sucesso Design Resort. Each author has had to combine his poetry with personal respect for the rules of the common project, which imposes the cover of all buildings, so that all air is camouflaged in the green golf course. The composition, the abstract and clear plastic and reduction to essentials, without boasting or constructive ornaments, make this set a lesson in how to intervene to tame the landscape without damage. The transition from the ultra modern Manueline confirms that all past is prologue and blurs the old and anachronistic in peripheral Portugal, where a house was com certeza Portuguese, a Portuguese home.
 
Foz do Arelho: Hot and cold water
Foz do Arelho is a town with a coastal beach in the confluence of the Óbidos lagoon and the waves of the Atlantic. You can choose between the warm and calm waters of the salty lagoon for swimming or surfing and cooler ocean for surfing. To the west there are dinosaur footprints and a little further is the Praia d’El Rey golf course with 18 holes. Lead me to eat at the bar from the beach in Rio Cortiço, a place of romance and family prices of fish as before. Susana and Pedro was launched 11 years ago and there still some amêijoas Duck à Bulhão making bread and wet. The name of this dish is not what was their creator, but a Portuguese poet who was a sine qua non for entering this recipe for sofrito of garlic in olive oil and white wine batter with mustard.

Caldas da Rainha
Nine miles along the A-8 is Caldas da Rainha, where the Queen Leonor founded in the fifteenth century, the first hospital to provide thermal benefits to the healing waters of five springs. The hospital continues to function as one of the many traces of the old glory.

Caldas is the hot springs and delicious candor of ceramics or Zé Povinho Tobias, whose pieces naïf wiliness and replicate the famous creations of nineteenth Bordalo Pinheiro. It’s worth visiting a museum, a prodigy that turns the fish, game or vegetables in soup plates or where espejea irony.