While we were driving from Lisbon to Porto, we stopped in Coimbra to break up the trip. We grabbed lunch a local place that literally had 3 dishes. It was great, but the service was even better!
The University of Coimbra's students wear robes that were (again) said to inspire Hogwart's uniforms. They also have a fantastic library, called the Joanina, that we wanted to see.
Our entire stay was probably 4 hours, but we enjoyed our brief stop!
We stopped at Batalha to see the Unfinished Chapels there - magnificent! Funny story - there was no one at the entrance, so we just assumed we could walk right in. While we were walking around, some kept yelling "Guten tag", but we didn't think anything of it.
Come to find out, the lady who was supposed to check our tickets was standing around and was yelling that at us because we were supposed to pay to enter. In German...in Portugal? Oh well. Super confusing experience, but we got to see the inside for free! HA!
Our actual stop for the night was in a walled city called Obidos. We stayed a little hotel right outside the city walls called The Literary Man. Such a cute place!
That afternoon, we walked around the walls, explored the adorable little streets, and had a few shots of the cherry liquor (Ginja) from the street-side stalls. We basically explored all of the town in a few hours, and once the tour groups left, we had the entire place to ourselves!
That evening, we ate dinner at A Nova Casa do Ramiro which was the perfect ending to our trip. The service was fabulous (as was the food of course)! At the end, they invited us to have a glass of ginja with them. The perfect "Saude" to our trip!
The next morning, we jumped in the car to head to the Lisbon airport. Unfortunately our first flight was delayed, causing us to miss our connection. We had a brief night in Frankfurt (where we stopped at a beer house for a beer and some schnitzel) before we finally arrived home.
Portugal was such a nice trip! Everyone was so welcoming and honestly, everything was much cheaper than the majority of Western Europe! We're still talking about the pastel de nata and vinho verde!
