Road Trip Round Portugal

As you may already know I am currently on holiday in Portugal with my Fiance and his family, who live in Lisbon, Portugal. We decided, as part of our holiday, to all go on a 3 day road trip round some interesting parts of Portugal, which was amazing. So I wanted to share with you some of my favourite places we visited and some amazing photographs I took.

Obidos

Obidos is a small medieval town, located North of Lisbon, bursting with culture and history. Obidos has a castle located in the middle of the town and a stone wall surrounding the town. The town still feels like it is living its medieval times with the cobbled streets, people dresses in outfits from the time, and the fantastic layout of streets as if untouched, taking us back in time. The buildings are all painted white, with a splash of colour, making it eye catching and keeping the town cool. As you walk through the cobbled streets you come across small little shops selling cakes, drinks, medieval themed clothes & souvenirs. In the middle of the town you then arrive at the castle, which was used by many of the kings of Portugal including the first King, Afonso Henriques, who concord the castle from the moors in 1148. This town and its surroundings is a beautiful place to visit and explore, giving you an insight of what it would of been like back in the medieval times.

S. Pedro de Moel

S. Pedro de Moel is a beautiful seaside town, which I feel in love with. We were only here for about 2 hours but it felt so nice to feel the cool breeze from the sea, as it was so hot. We ate lunch at a restaurant overlooking the sea with an amazing view, and it was a great place to take some lovely photographs. The sea was a beautiful blue/green colour with large rocks and cliffs scattered around the shoreline.

Moving into the town, the majority of the building were painted white with hints of colour. The reasoning behind the white building is very interesting. With the summer heat, everything gets extremely hot so one way to help keep houses cool is to paint them white. White, compared to other colours, reflects heat so it helps reflect heat from your house, keeping it cool. The streets were all cobbled and have a lovely Portuguese feeling to them.

The photograph below is of a beautiful house I saw down one of the cute streets. Portugal is well known for its blue tile designs, which this house incorporated and it works really well, creating a border of blue in this lovely entrance. This house has gone for a white and light yellow colour, which will still help to keep the house cool, and gives it a lovely twist of contrast compared to its neighbouring houses. Most houses have orange terracotta-coloured tiles on the roof, as it is a low cost and abundant material in the region. I felt this house was just so sweet that I had to share it with you all.

Talasnal Village

This is a little village called Talasnal, which is located within the collection of Serra da Lousã Schist (Slate) Villages. Talasnal Village is located quite high up the Lousã Mountain range making for a beautiful view down to the town below and the neighbouring mountains. This town is known as ‘slate village’ due to all the paths and building being constructed with slate. It has a total population of 1, however, you can stay the night in one of the many old buildings that are now small B&B’s. You can only walk around this town, cars have to be parked outside, allowing for a very peaceful and calming atmosphere, which I really enjoyed. The town is built on the mountainside so there are steep hills and a lot of steps to reach different parts of this very small, yet magical village.

When you do reach the edge of the town you are greeted by a stunning view down the valley to the town bellow. I love the way that you can look at the same valley from different parts of the town and it is always different but extremely picturesque. I highly recommend visiting this village if you get the chance, its quite a trek to get to, with windy roads, but it is well worth it, I promise.

Busaco National Forest

Busaco National Forest was such a nice and peaceful place to go as our final destination on our road trip. This forest is known for its large variety of spices of trees and for it being a retreat for the monks who built it and the Portuguese Kings. We decided to go on a walk down to a large lake and on the way down we came across a water feature down a large staircase. I loved the way that every set of stairs had water cascading down the middle of them, making the area nice and relaxing but also cooling.

So that rounds up the best bit of the road trip and where I recommend visiting. If you want to see more photographs from my holiday then go check out my Instagram. I hope you enjoyed this blog and if you are going to Portugal soon then this might give you an idea of some amazing places to go. Would you like to see more of my holiday, with another 9 days to go, keep an eye on my Blog, Instagram, and Twitter.

I’m off for a swim now!

Steph x