Obidos and Penises

We are in a beautiful medieval town, Obidos, featuring small cobblestone streets, enchanting street lamps, a pillory (for whipping 14th century wrongdoers) and a very impressive castle.

Every July the town features a huge medieval fest and the inner walls of the Castelo sport faux 12th century stables and stalls in readiness for the trip back in time.

The town also holds court in December as Christmas central where throngs of tourists come to celebrate the holiday.

Starting in April, tour bus after tour bus arrive making the streets impassable given the number of visitors.

 We are however in the bottom of down season so we have the town to ourselves.

Still small tourist shops line the streets thicker than Niagara on the Lake but sport some interesting items for sale.

Many cork purses, hats and shoes; the ubiquitous tiles, Our Lady of this and that and then surprisingly, Umm Dildos.

In a Christmas and kids theme store, Catherine came from the back where all I saw were charming felt and wool animal hangings. "Uh there are all these Dildos back there...not sure what that's about" she said.

"Really? I don't believe you" "Go see for yourself" she says.

I push by the wool angels and farm animals and she's right: about 25 huge ceramic dildos, many in charming hand-painted azejula blues with fascinating patterns.

I go to the proprietor trying not to break the tiles or pottery. I had my backpack after all.

She was a pretty cool woman in her 60s, playing Leonard Cohen and singing to  "So Long Marianne" aloud, one of my favorite Cohen songs.

As I suspected, it was a weird local cultural thing, like the Spanish "shit log" featured in some Spanish nativity scenes where you get Mary, Joseph, baby Jesus, shepherds and ummm...a guy taking a dump.

"So what's with the Dildos?" I ask

She begins laughing: "the penises!? In my village 5 miles from here the king came in 1874 and held a big feast for the people. But he asked that instead of the usual gifts you give the man who hosts the feast, he wanted gifts which were jokes.

So a man who is a ceramicist brings a huge penis to the king.  Everyone loves it and from now on it is a symbol of our town. In our town they are everywhere by things for children. It's no big deal.

Then she called to find out how much a taxi would cost to go to her town, where we could pick up a rental, and what time the buses went.