The final stop on our trip was Evora, an ancient city in Eastern Portugal near Spain that has been a crossroads since before Roman times. The town is famous now for it’s intact architecture that predates the devastating earthquake that leveled most other cities in Portugal in the 18th century.
(more…)

Obidos is an idyllic little place. It’s been inhabited forever, but hasn’t changed much in the last few hundred years. It’s still a walled town and all the houses still follow the tradional house painting style that denotes property lines. This all give the small town a romatic atmosphere that was evident even in medieval times when a tradition was established to ‘give’ the town to a new Queen as a wedding gift. Since the monarchy is no longer around, I figured the town was up for grabs and decided to give it to Elyse. We’re thinking about calling it Elysia or something like that.
(more…)

From Lisbon we moved on to Sintra. We had always planned on spending a little time here but it wasn’t much of a priority. We originally intended on doing it as a day trip out of Lisbon in order to spend more time in the Algarve. A change in plans allowed us to give Sintra 2 nights, and it was so worth it. It was probably the highlight of our trip, an amazingly magical place that gave us a few surprises.
(more…)

We’re home! We didn’t end up having much time to post pictures while we were traveling so we decided to just wait and do it all when we got back home. This and the next 3 posts contain photos and descriptions of the places we visited. We were pretty conservative and didn’t end up covering that much ground. Our traveling philosophy involved lot’s of relaxing, sipping wine/expresso/cervesa depending on time of day, and thoroughly enjoying ourselves. We had a blast.
(more…)

Elyse and I have had an incredible time this last week. Everything is working out perfectly and we’ve been able to find the perfect mixture of traveling and relaxation to keep the both of us happy. We got over our jet lag almost immediately and were able to fully enjoy our first few days in Lisbon. After that we decided to skip the Algarve in order to spend more time in the area around Lisbon, including Sintra, Elyse’s fantasy wonderland. She almost overdosed on a lethal combination of fairytale palaces, medieval castles, and cute little inns. We’re in Obidos now, an ancient hilltown about 2 hours north of Lisbon. With the cobblestone streets and colorful houses, the cuteness meter is definitely in the danger zone. I worry about Elyse’s sanity.

We’re off to the town of Evora tomorrow where we´re staying in a luxury inn that was converted from a medieval convent. Wish us luck.

Pictures to come…