Portugal: Marinha Grande, Batalha & Alcobaca Monasteries, Obidos

After Porto we planned to have a short beach break as Aaron found some off road tracks he wanted to explore. We hadn’t booked a campsite before heading to the area for we expected to find plenty since we were going to the coast. To our disappointment it turned out there were hardly any campsites and the ones we found had high fences with barbed wire that looked as if they were meant to keep you in against your will! We really didn’t like them but eventually settled on one. We called it a misty campsite as every afternoon a cold mist from the ocean covered the nearby beach, campsite and beyond.

It was a rather working stop but we had some time to enjoy the beach and to do some off roading as planned.

Beany  is practising his spider climbs...

...whilst Micky, as always, enjoys a swing.

  

Any place is good to work on the car. The only condition it has to meet is to be level.

After hard work it was time to play: evening fun off roading

A sunset over the Atlantic Ocean

A day on a beach in Marinha Grande. We were allowed to drive the car into it!

And practising spider climbs again.

Dinner

 

  

 Batalha Monastery XIV C

 

 

The Founder's Chapel

The cloister of King Joao I who commissioned the monastery.

The King Alfonso V cloister added to the monastery in the second half of 15th Century.

The Unfinished Chapels - never completed but still beautiful notwithstanding. It has a shape of 8-sided roundabout with seven chapels.

The Great Portal of the Unfinished Chapels

 

The Balcony of the Unfinished Chapels

One of the seven chapels with the joint tomb of the King Duarte who commissioned the Unfinished Chapels and his wife Queen Leonor

Alcobaca Monastery XII C

The Church - built between 1178 and 1233-52. The vaults of the naves are over 20 metres high.

The King's Hall with rococo tiles.

Cloister of Silence

The pulpit in the refectory (the monastery's trademark)

The large baroque chimney covered with tiles in the monastery's kitchen

Chapel of Saint Bernard

Obidos

 Obidos is XIIIC town laid by the Moors. The town was a wedding gift to the Queen Dona Isabel after she fell in love with the place when visiting it in 1228.

On the way to Obidos

Walk in Obidos

 

View of Obidos from the city walls (muro) that run around the whole town. Although they are in a good condition to walk the whole distance I wasn't able to do so as the part of the walls behind the castle was closed. I don't know whether it has something to do with the 13th century castle being open only to those who pay an entry fee or the medieval festival that happened to take place in the castle at the time.

3km long aqueduct from XIII C

The castle in the background

 

17-20 July 2015