Óbidos: Medieval Castle Walk & Ginjinha Tasting Tour

4.93

(138 reviews)

What’s the experience like?

“Try not to eat the cup before the liqueur,” our guide Rui grinned, handing me this tiny chocolate shell brimming with Ginjinha. I’d barely stepped through Óbidos’ stone archway and already there was this smell—something like old books mixed with cherry syrup and wet cobblestones. It’s hard to explain unless you’ve been here. We followed Rui down these twisting lanes where every wall seemed to have a story or some blue-and-white tile peeking out from under peeling paint.

The São Tiago Church is now a bookstore (I know, that surprised me too). Inside, the hush was thick, broken only by someone flipping pages somewhere behind the altar. Rui pointed at a painting by Josefa de Óbidos—her face looked stern but kind, if that makes sense. He told us she was the first Portuguese woman whose art made it to the Louvre. I tried repeating her name in Portuguese; Li laughed at my accent and honestly, it was deserved.

We climbed up toward the castle—wind picking up, carrying that faint scent of orange blossoms from someone’s garden. The stones felt cold under my hand. Rui explained how this place switched hands between Moors and Christians for centuries; I could almost hear echoes in those narrow passages. There’s something about seeing all of Óbidos from up on those ramparts that made me feel small in a good way. Afterward we wandered through what used to be the Jewish quarter—I liked how nobody rushed us, not even when I stopped just to listen to church bells and distant chatter from a café below.