Hi,
The days are getting longer and the weather is wonderful. With Chris working Monday through Saturday, we don’t have the luxury of making several visits during the week like we did last year. However, we have been able to get out each Sunday. And this Sunday was quite exciting.
We headed inland towards Coimbra…well, just south of Coimbra. The map shows several castles in that area, and we wanted to see them all. The first castle we stopped at was one that we had almost seen last year, but we had never found the parking lot for the castle and we just drove on to the next castle on our list. Thankfully, we found a parking space this time, and we had a lovely time wandering around the grounds of Castelo de Penela (2JJ5+9W Penela, Portugal). Check out the video.
This castle has a mostly intact outer wall, complete with ramparts for Chris and the dogs to climb up to and walk along. There was a church service going on in the church when we arrived, so we did our best to keep quiet and out of the way of the congregation while we were there. Still, we made sure to see everything before leaving.
We had less luck at our next castle. We never arrived there, due to a closed road. We tried driving around and coming in from another side, but we couldn’t quite meet up with the castle. So, we will keep an eye on Google Maps and will swing back by when the road opens.
The third castle we headed for was Castelo do Hospital Sobral Cid (5HGX+5M Castelo Viegas, Portugal). What we didn’t know before arriving was that this castle is not a castle. It is a water reservoir (per a review on Google Maps) that was built on the site of a hospital. I don’t really know why they built the reservoir inside a mock-castle, but it looks good; much better than a boxy, cinder-block building. The hospital is set in wooded grounds with a trail that the patients can walk, and the castle being on the trails is better for relaxation and therapeutic perambulations than an ugly infrastructure building, so I guess I can’t fault the water company for their choice of architecture.
By the time we finished snapping pictures of the mock-castle, it was time to take the dogs to a dog park and then head home. It was a long day, but it was great to be out in the sunshine with the girls. They enjoyed all the stops on Sunday, and we are looking forward to heading out again next Sunday.
Nola