Óbidos: the castle, the walls and the town's monuments

The short answer

Óbidos is a town inside medieval walls, with its castle on the highest part of the hill.[2][9][10] The Óbidos municipality's monument pages set out what is there: the castle and the governors' palace, the main gate, the street that joins them, a handful of churches and chapels, a Manueline pillory and a 16th-century aqueduct.[1] Part of the castle is a hotel. The municipality says the governors' palace was recovered in the 20th century to house a pousada, which opened in 1950.[2]

XTOUR does not know whether the walls can be walked, and it publishes no opening hours or prices for any of these monuments.

The castle and the Paço dos Alcaides

The municipality's page calls the Castelo de Óbidos e Paço dos Alcaides a National Monument since 1910 and lists its architecture as military, Romanesque, Gothic, Manueline and Baroque. It attributes a Roman origin to the castle, probably on an earlier hillfort, followed by an Arab fortification, taken by the Christians in 1148 and repaired and enlarged many times afterwards.[2]

The defences grew in stages. The page says the castle was complemented by the Cerca Velha (old enclosure), the Torre Albarrã and the Torre do Facho, and names later additions under several kings: a barbican, the towers of Dinis and Fernando, and the Cerca Nova (new enclosure).[2]

Under King Manuel I, the castle's governor (the alcaide) had a palace built and parts of the castle altered. The page singles out its Manueline windows onto the courtyard and a portal with the royal arms and those of the Noronha family, flanked by two armillary spheres. The palace was badly damaged in the 1755 earthquake and was in total ruin by the 20th century; it was then recovered to house the first state pousada in a historic building, adapted from 1948 and opened in 1950.[2]

XTOUR treats the castle and the walls that enclose the town as one place, and the hotel as a separate business. The castle's Manueline palace windows are one of the examples in Manueline architecture explained.

The gate and Rua Direita

The Porta da Vila is the main gateway into the town, probably built under King Fernando around 1376, according to the municipality. It is a double gate laid out "em cotovelo", bent at an angle so that it was easier to defend, and the page highlights its Baroque narrative tiles of 1740 to 1745. The inscription above it was placed by King João IV in thanks to the town's patron saint after the Restoration of independence in 1640.[3]

From the gate, Rua Direita runs to the Paço dos Alcaides. The municipality says the street already had this name in the 14th century and that changes in the 16th and 17th centuries hid some of the houses' Gothic doorways.[4]

Santa Maria and the Misericórdia

The parish church of Santa Maria stands on the square of the same name and is the town's principal church, according to its municipal page. Its history runs from a mosque, consecrated as a church by Afonso Henriques after the conquest of 1148, through a reform by Queen Leonor at the end of the 15th century, to a complete rebuilding begun on 15 August 1571 under Queen Catarina. A Baroque campaign about a century later added the ceiling, tiles and canvases of the naves.[5]

Two of the things the page singles out inside stand apart. The tomb of João de Noronha and his wife Isabel de Sousa is classified as a National Monument in its own right, inside a church classified as an Imóvel de Interesse Público. And the retable of Saint Catherine was painted by Josefa d'Óbidos; the municipality says it is possibly the only work by her still in its original place.[5]

The Igreja da Misericórdia was the Chapel of the Holy Spirit, where Queen Leonor founded the town's Misericórdia confraternity, by tradition in 1498. Its single nave is entirely lined with blue and yellow pattern tiles of about 1625 to 1630, and its paintings by André Reinoso date from about 1628 to 1630. The former Misericórdia hospital next to it is now also a historic pousada.[6]

The pillory, a chapel and the aqueduct

The pelourinho, the stone pillory column that stood for municipal authority, is a National Monument since 1910, and the municipality classifies it as Manueline. It carries the royal arms and Queen Leonor's emblem, a shrimp net, and probably followed King Manuel's new charter for the town in 1513; it now stands above the fountain on the Praça de Santa Maria.[7]

The Capela de São Martinho, facing the Igreja de São Pedro, is a Gothic family funerary chapel founded in 1331, according to the municipality's list.[1]

The aqueduct was begun in 1573 at the expense of Queen Catarina of Austria and fed the fountain on the Praça de Santa Maria and another by the Porta da Vila, destroyed in the 20th century. The municipality gives its length, in visible and underground sections, as about 3.6 kilometres.[8]

The same list includes the Santuário do Senhor Jesus da Pedra, inaugurated in 1747, which it places outside the town, on the road to Caldas da Rainha.[1]

Where the official pages disagree

The municipality and the regional tourism board tell parts of the town's story differently:

• The queens' town. The municipal tourism site's timeline says that after the marriage of King Dinis and Queen Isabel in 1282, Óbidos became part of the dowry of every Portuguese queen until 1834.[9] The regional tourism board's page says Óbidos was the exclusive property of the queens until 1883.[10] XTOUR repeats neither date as settled.
• What the pousada occupies. The regional tourism board's page calls the castle "now a pousada".[10] The municipality is more precise: it is the governors' palace inside the castle that was recovered to house the pousada.[2]
• The gate's name. The regional tourism board says the town is entered through "the southern gate of Santa Maria", with 18th-century tiles.[10] The municipality calls the main gate the Porta da Vila, with its oratory of Nossa Senhora da Piedade, and dates its tiles to 1740 to 1745.[3] Neither page uses the other's name, so XTOUR does not state that the two names refer to one gate.

One more line is unclear rather than disputed. The municipality's list of the town's monuments carries the words "Monumento Nacional desde 1951" under its title without saying which monument or ensemble it means.[1] XTOUR does not guess.

Óbidos and the monasteries

XTOUR treats Óbidos as a travel base for the monasteries of Batalha and Alcobaça. They are in their own towns, not in Óbidos, and XTOUR publishes no travel times to them; they are covered in the Batalha and Alcobaça guide.

What XTOUR does not tell you

XTOUR does not know whether the walls can be walked, which parts of the castle are hotel premises, or which churches are open to visitors on a given day. XTOUR does not publish opening hours, prices or accessibility information. The municipality's monument pages describe history and architecture rather than visiting terms; their footers say they were last updated on 17 January 2023.[2] For the town as a base, see the Óbidos destination page.