Óbidos

Overview

Óbidos is the town of the queens: Afonso II gave it to Queen Urraca in 1210, the queens of Portugal held and endowed it for three centuries after, and Afonso V married his cousin Isabel in its main church in 1441 when he was nine and she was ten. Today 3,100 people live inside and around a ring of walls on a low hill, with the castle at the top, now a pousada, whitewashed houses trimmed in blue and yellow along the Rua Direita, and a great many bookshops, the reason UNESCO made it a Creative City of Literature in 2015.

It is an hour from Lisbon by coach and the most visited village in the country, which means coach parties from mid-morning to late afternoon and a very different place before and after; the cherry liqueur, the walk on the walls and the lagoon and golf coast beyond are what the day is about.

Neighbourhoods

Inside the walls

The walled village is a few streets on a slope, the Rua Direita and the lanes either side of it, with the hotels, restaurants and shops; it is entirely pedestrian, cobbled and steep in places, and after the last coach leaves it belongs to the people staying the night.

Outside the walls

The modern town, the car parks, the bus stop and the railway station are below the gate; the villages of the municipality, the lagoon and the golf coast at Vau are a car ride away, with the resorts’ hotels and restaurants.

See & do

The walls and the castle

Enter through the Porta da Vila, a tiled portico with a baroque oratory to Our Lady of Mercy, the town’s patron, on the balcony above the gate. The walk along the top of the walls circles the village with views over the roofs, the aqueduct and the plain to the lagoon; there is no railing, so hold on to children. The castle at the far end, a medieval fortress on a site occupied since the Romans, is a pousada, and non-guests see it from the walls and the bar.

The street and the churches

The Rua Direita runs from the gate to the castle and is the village: shops selling ginja, ceramics and books, the municipal museum in the old council chamber with paintings by Josefa de Óbidos, the 17th-century painter who lived and worked here, and the Praça de Santa Maria with the main church, a mosque until the reconquest of 1148 and rebuilt in the 16th century with azulejos and a bell tower. Outside the walls the 16th-century aqueduct strides across the fields, and the hexagonal baroque sanctuary of Senhor Jesus da Pedra, of 1747, stands on the N8 to the north-east.

Food & drink

Ginja de Óbidos is the taste of the place: a strong sour-cherry liqueur made by infusing the fruit in aguardente with sugar, cinnamon and cloves, sold by the glass from every doorway on the Rua Direita and by the bottle to take home, with a cherry in the bottom of the cup. The restaurants inside the walls charge village-tourist prices and, as Wikivoyage puts it, know what to charge for a meal; a fish and cod house by the Porta do Vale, a family place by the sanctuary outside the walls, and a chapel turned restaurant with tasting menus from €30 to €55 are the range.

Nightlife

There is none to speak of: a glass of ginja on the street, dinner, the walls at dusk and the hotel bar. The one restaurant that stays open until 02:00 on Friday and Saturday is the chapel on the Rua Dom João de Ornelas.

When to go

April to June, September to October. The best light and the best temperatures for the walls, with the coach crowds present but bearable; come early or stay the night.

July to August. Hot and full in the middle of the day; the lagoon and the beaches at Praia d’El Rey are the afternoon escape.

November to March. Cool, wet and quiet, with the village emptier than at any other time and the pousada and hotels at their cheapest.

Getting there

By coach. The Rodoviária do Oeste rápida from Lisbon’s Campo Grande takes about an hour for around €9 and is much faster and more frequent than the train; it stops on the Rua da Praça below the gate.

By train. The Linha do Oeste regional trains from Lisbon take two to three hours to the station below the town, and the walk up is short; leave luggage at the station if you are passing through.

By road. The A8 and the A15 both pass the town and the N8 runs by the walls; paid parking is outside them. Lisbon airport is about an hour.

Getting around

Everything inside the walls is on foot; the OBI municipal bus runs once a week to each of the outlying villages, which is to say a car is needed for the lagoon and the coast.

Where to stay

Sleeping inside the walls is the way to have the village to yourself: the pousada in the castle from about €130 to over €350, the Literary Man hotel with its walls of books, the Casa das Senhoras Rainhas and an albergaria on the Rua Direita from about €47. The golf resorts at Vau and Praia d’El Rey, from around €95 to €200, are the other kind of stay.

Practical info

The tourist office is on the Rua da Porta da Vila by the gate, open daily 09:30 to 17:30 with a lunch break. The walls are unfenced and the cobbles are slippery when wet; the coaches arrive from about 10:00, and the village is a different place at 08:00 and after 18:00. Ginja bottles travel well in checked luggage. For money, plugs and pharmacies see the Portugal guide.

Places to visit

Castle

• Castle of Óbidos — The queens’ castle and the 1.5 km wall-walk round the village