Óbidos Local Customs

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March is marked in Obidos by a new event, that is becoming a strong attraction - a chocolate fair. All kind of qualities, artistic demonstrations and cultural animation fill Obidos with many thousand visitors.

PS - Some people start complaining that paying 5 € just to... buy chocolate, is too much. Aren't we in crisis or not, after all?

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Obidos means... animation, and in December, Christmas is a natural theme. Several amusements, mainly with kids in mind, give life to a lively city.

The problem is that, sometimes, the mild Portuguese weather forgets to come, and the artificial snow doesn't look so artificial after all.

A fine example of glazed ceramic decorative tiles greets you as you enter the town of Obidos through its main gate, the 'Porta da Vila'. This custom derived from the hundreds of years of Moorish occupation and has been adopted by the Portugese and developed to a high state of art.

This oratory, built in the 1700s and dedicated to Our Lady of Piety, provides a perfect place within the gate to put on a show for the town's visitors. As I was trying to take this photo, I had to jostle for position because of large crowd of French tourists had just disembarked from a bus and their guide was trying to explain this to them. At the same time, delivery trucks were trying to squeeze through this old and narrow gate!

I was glad to escape up onto the battlements - but the scene was actually very quiet when we later exited through here.

According to local Portuguese legend, it was the crowing of a roasted rooster that saved a journeying pilgrim, condemned to hang for a murder he did not commit. This act of faith inspired the Portuguese to elect a new household mascot - the gaily painted ROOSTER OF GOOD LUCK AND HAPPINESS.
You will find colourful, painted souvenir roosters everywhere you go in Portugal.

At the main entrance where the bulk of the tourists arrive by the busloads and cars to the carpark are stand by local women selling locally made biscuits, cakes and sweets.
I enjoyed the opportunity to chat to one of them and discuss recommended ones ie her favourites and information about them, and bought two different types to try something of the locality.
One was a huge biscuit with peanuts , for euro 80cents, and though quite hard and sweet, as already advised, it fed my liking for biscuits with peanuts (a kiwi thing! we make peanut biscuits from our famous Edmonds cookbook from way back in our childhoods!! but with cocoa) and it was rather delicious.

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Built by the order of Queen Catarina of Austria, wife of D. João III, King of Portugal.

The Aqueduct is about 3 Km (approx 2 miles) long and was set to provide fresh water to the city.

I've read on my recent research that Queen Catarina paid for the Aqueducts' full construction herself and got reimbursed with the property of some nearby agricultural fields. The Aqueduct was built in 1573.

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There are quite a few stone arched doorways in Óbidos. I usually take a moment when I'm crossing through it. I look to its details and stare amazed, wondering how many centuries before have those been built.

Numerous small shops are all over in the village of Óbidos during the Medieval Fair.

More pictures of Óbidos' Medieval time are available here.