Obidos, Portugal is a medieval village with a castle, high on a hill, encircled by a fortified wall. King Alfonso II gave the town to his Queen Urraca in 1210, because upon visiting it she thought it so pretty. People come here to marvel &, for a few, to "walk the walls."
It's hard to get to, even after you disembark at the train station.
Getting off at the Obidos train station seemed akin to Spencer Tracy arriving at Black Rock.
Nothing as far as the eye can see
I looked around for a town, but farmland spread in every direction until I looked up. Way up.
Medieval rulers knew how to make fortresses terrifying. When you think about it, fear was a popular method of controlling the populous & making it cower...churches soar & cause terror & awe...& it must have taken tremendous courage to attack forts & castles that rose jaggedly into the sky.
Keeping my eye on the castle & going up, up, up felt like a familiar fairy tale
These stones are huge & cold; how did ancient people, with no modern tools, construct these gigantic, sprawling castles & walls? I don't really mean how mechanically...I mean how did humans, evolved out of dust, come to envision such grand & monumental things?
Finally I reached the village, its white houses dazzling in the sun. The cobblestones in this town are not nice flattened or rounded stones as in most ancient cities; they are big pointy, jagged rocks, hard to walk on, a killer of wheeled suitcases. The owner of the house where I am staying, who grew up here, says that all locals have broken at least one ankle at least once on these cobblestones. She broke the same ankle twice.
My house is known for its lemon tree
You could spend a lifetime on this porch, in the dappled shade
A whole entire living room!
This is the first house I've stayed in during all these travels. So luxurious to roam from room to room...cook in the kitchen. Made me wish I had a house. A house with a porch. Just for kicks, I looked up property values here in Obidos, thinking that you could probably pick up a house in this gorgeous area for dirt cheap, like in Costa Rica. Au contraire!...these little white houses are $1.5-2.5 million bucks!! There's a world class golf course, one of the best in Europe, somewhere around here...maybe that's why.
I am going to "walk the wall." This means climbing to the top of the fortress & walking all the way around the town on the walls where ancient soldiers walked, & fought, & died.
I knew in advance that the walkways were narrow & bumpy with rocks & that there were no handrails or safety mechanisms. A tourist fell off this wall & died last year...a young, drunk guy showing off with his friends. I went, early on a quiet morning, with no other soul in sight or within earshot.
Once you start, even if you have regrets, you don't really want to turn back, because you'd just have to retrace that which already scared you.
The town from up high, if you're not too afraid to take your eyes off your feet
I don't mind saying I was scared. That's a narrow fucking walkway & a long way down.
'Nuf said
The scariest parts were when the walkways turned a corner, meaning that whatever straightaway I was on fell away into nothingness.
I walked clinging to the inside, with one hand sliding across the wall at all times
It's weird the things you do a certain moments...I actually sang myself through this experience...that song "You'll Never Walk Alone." That's what came into my head. You know the song...
The light here is distinctive....white, not yellow, & soft, at least at this time of year. It helped to appreciate that while I was up there...I think just a foot or two from the sun.
Still, the rolling stretches of fertile farmland were gorgeous, when I was able to peel my eyes off the walkway & look.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mN8oN8I3lrk
Journey done, I stopped for coffee & a local breakfast treat, a custard, eating slowly while my heart rate returned to normal.
Why did I do it? Because when I travel to places where history echoes so loudly, I like to walk in the footsteps where others walked decades or centuries, or millennia ago. I find it tremendously hopeful & inspiring. Just this little hilly village, for example, inhabited since Paleolithic times, passed through the hands of Celtics, Phoenicians, Romans, Visigoths, Moors, Mozarabs, & finally the Portugese. People were born & perished, loved & hated, fought & sought peace, ate & drank, were sick & well, happy & miserable, desperate & comfortable, anguished & joyous. The sea lapped against these castle walls, then receded. The cycles of history & humanity & nature. As individuals, we're just passing through, but over all time, life prevails.
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