On Monday we caught the 08.20hr local bus to Caldas de Rainha and changed there for another bus to the old town of Obidos. This is a walled city built from the 13th century onwards, on a hill about 30 miles inland. Its narrow cobbled street and white house walls make it a classic tourist destination. It is a good walk around the narrow walls but take care as ‘elf and safety’ hasn’t found Portugal yet and there are uneven cobbles and no rails. The streets are attractive and there are some ornate churches and interesting looking houses, it would be great to see inside some of them. We arrived about 09.45hr and the first coaches were soon afterwards, it was never a problem that day but we could imagine the crowd in the peak of the season. Go early and plan to leave after two/three hours. Our coffees there were twice the price of elsewhere in Portugal so having seen the town, we caught the 12.00 noon bus back to Caldas de Rainha, wandered around there and found a small restaurant to have lunch. A local meat ‘pie’ for a starter, nice steaks in mustard sauce or with egg, plus chips, a bottle of wine and coffee was less than E30.
When we got back Chris dropped the dinghy into the water and put the outboard on. Not that we needed to go anywhere but our outboard doesn’t like being ignored. If we leave it for a couple of weeks it normally doesn’t start easily, if at all. It had only been about 13 days but true to form there was no go, despite multiple pulls of the starter. Chris gave it a good talking to but that didn’t work either. We left the thing in the water to sulk overnight.

We made another trip into town this morning to visit the market for more fresh fruit and veg. We also bought some corvina (locally caught fish – similar to sea bass) which the kind fishmonger filleted and explained how to cook it... dinner is now sorted. Then Neil came over to help resolve the outboard crisis as it was still not responding. Neil knows a lot more about outboards than Chris (who can turn it on and then shout at it when it doesn’t work). We checked the spark plug, the other electrics and then the fuel supply. His suspicion was that not enough fuel was getting through to the combustion point so some heavy mouth to tank blowing down the fuel system to increase the pressure and push fuel through was the next idea. It worked, the engine started and has now been tested a couple of times with success. We learnt a lot and hopefully can apply some of the ideas if (when) it happens again. Chris does have a suspicion that the sulky engine just liked being ‘snogged’.

The weather is still showing strong winds and, as importantly, heavy swell for today and Wednesday so it looks as if Thursday is our first chance to head further south. The current plan is to skip Peniche as we hear bad stories of fishing boats creating large ‘yacht damaging’ wash in the harbour. We will probably do a longer trip down to Cascais, about 70 miles overall. This should also be easier for Alan, who joins us on Saturday, to reach from Lisbon Airport.


The photo shows a view of Obidos, its walls and streets.