Travel Stories - Portugal

After arriving in the Portugese city of Tomar we checked in at our campsite and make our way immediately (after putting up our tent) towards the big sight of town. The road is under construction and we have trouble coming up with our slippers; everywhere glass, loose rocks and stones. We walk through the gate of the monastery to see how far we can come without paying. Today it’s a free entrance because of the holidays and we are just within the free time limit; two o'clock. This monastery appears to have been the largest, most important center of the temple knights "the Templars" - those who protected the churches and monasteries. It is called "Convento de Cristo" and seems to have been terribly powerful between the 12th and 16th centuries. This terrible large building has monasteries, chapels, kitchens, patios, dormitories and is built and enlarged in different styles in different times. Especially the "Chorala" is beautiful, it is a circle of columns containing an altar - a temple in a temple and it is said that this is a copy of the church in Jerusalem. Beautiful frescos and murals on the outside. We also see the well-known authentic Portugese tiles again, trees in the patios and beautiful stone work everywhere. It is too much to mention and we’ve seen already so much in Portugal that we look at the highlights today and decide to get out. We walk down the hill again and take a look at the oldest church in the city; "Igreja de Sao Joao Baptista" with again beautiful tiling and six paintings.

It is a quarter past seven in the morning when we take our day bags from our tent and walk to the trainstation. Our train goes to "Entroncamento" where we have to change - 10 minutes wait - on a very short green train that takes us to the tiny station of "Almourol". On the way we pass regularly small gray concrete trainstations until we see the castle in the distance. At the stop we are the only ones to get out and ask just before we go out when a train is returning today. We walk down a narrow path and then arrive at a junction; we take the road that runs downhill and finishes on a road with several benches where you have a good view of the beautiful - Playmobil - "Castelo de Almourol" castle. It is built on a rock in the middle of the main river (and largest) of the Iberian peninsula "Tejo" (to the river Tagus). A man is probably waiting just like us for the boat that hopefully brings us to the castle and the other one is the fisherman who pulls one after the other from the water and then throws them back. We rush to the top and are now the only ones in the castle which is beautiful but there is actually nothing else to see but the frames. The walls, stairs, towers but with a little imagination you see the Templars (the "grandmaster" has had this built) of one side running with their bows and others throwing hot oil at the enemy if they had the guts to come here. Actually, the castle is already of Roman origin I would read later. It is a beautiful view of the big tower over the river where a strong breeze blows over it.

We’ve got enough time to walk back from the banks of the river to our train station where we sit under a big tree under which you can shelter from the sun. We sit down on some chairs, try to lure the wild cats and see a very old scale and there is even an old table with tiling. Behind the abandoned train station there are even toilets where the flies have the upper hand. While we are waiting for things to come, suddenly a very sexy female voice through the sound system probably indicates that the train is coming.  

Back in Tomar we sit down on the terrace in one of the main streets and order a "chopp" beer. We suddenly see a woman with a kind of tower of Pisa on her head; we look again and we now see three women with towers on their heads; all three in a different color. The one red, green and blue. I walk to them to see what it really is and see that there is bread in it - they are bars with bread and in between - probably plastic - flowers made in all colors. She has to stand against the wall because the tower almost falls off her mind. We enjoy this traditional head-feast, drink our beer and after a few walk back to our campsite.