Traveling North

---

Our trip north over the last several days has seen the topography change, populations grown denser, the weather colder, and the coffee stronger. Portuguese histroy seems to be older as you go north, as well. We thought we had a nodding acquaintence with it´s history in all the time we´ve spent in the south, but we didn´t.

Our fist stop was at the walled town of Obidos. The wall is intact, the houses are all painted white, and there are wonderful little shops scattered along the narrow streets. The town was traditionally given by Poruguese kings to their wives! At the top on the hill sits the castle, now a pousada, but we were unable to gain entrance.

We stopped in Alcobaca to visit the largest church in Portugal, founded in 1153 to celebrate the victory over the Moors in a nearby town. The interesting piece of history associated to this church is the love story between Dom Pedro I and Ines de Castro. Their tombs lie feet-to-feet across the aisle so that they´ll be able to see each other on judgement day.

The Batalha Cathedral stuns you as you come around a corner and see it sitting in a town in a valley. This church was built to celebrate the victory over the Spanish in 1385. They were celebrating Palm Sunday mass when we arrived, so we weren´t able to see much of the interior. We were able to roam around the cloisters and other parts of the huge building. The most impressive was the Capela Imperfeitas (Unfinished Chapels). It was to be a mausoleum for Dom Duarte and Leonor of Aragon, but was never finished. The tomb of the king and queen are there and the walls surrounding them are done in the striking Manualine style. But there is no roof. It´s quite spiritual to have the room open to the sky.

The Knights Templar castel on a hilltop overlooking Tomar was the most impressive to me. I´ve been fascinated by the knights ever since I read the "Davinci Code". I´ve learned more about them visiting this country as they were very powerful here and this was their base of operations. The castel is huge and you can well imagine the scope and breadth of their power. Henry the Navigator was their Grand Master for a time. They had an understanding that if they funded Henry´s "discoveries", they could administer all the colonies Portugal was able to subsequently establish.

We spent an intriguing couple of hours at Conimbriga, the site of the most extensive Roman ruins found in Portugal. They suspect the site supported a large city and they have years worth of excavations to do. An amazing number of intact mosaic floors have been uncovered and they´ve planted plants around a fountain. For fifty cents, you can turn the fountain on and have a wonderful experience of imagining how beautiful the area was 2,000 years ago.

We spent a couple of days in Coimbra where Europe´s second oldest university is located on top of a very high hill. We attended a fado concert while there. Coimbra´s fado is much different than that we´ve heard in Lisbon and Madeira. Men are the singers rather than women, and instead of the mournful songs the women sing, the men sing songs of serenades. All fado is accompanied by a 12-string guitar and a Portuguese guitar.

Bucaco is a wonderful treat found way up in the mountains. It is a palace in what we would call a National Forest. It started out as a monastic retreat, then evolved into a hunting lodge and is now a luxury hotel. The site is noted as the place where the Duke of Wellington spent a night after defeating Napoleon nearby.

We´re now staying in Guimaraes, known as the birthplace of Portugal. The first king, Alfonso Henriques, was born here and won a decisive battle here to establish the nation--in the 10th Century.

We´ve seen so much and absorbed so much information, we´re almost overloaded. These short entries into a blog cannot begin to give the full impact of a visit to this wonderful country. We´ll be heading to Porto tomorrow for our last few days of the trip. Will write again while there to give a flavor of the second largest city in Portugal.

---

Comments

[peter42y]

great post
great post indeed. Very well written and with lots of interesting information. I hope you enjoy your stay in Portugal. I am portuguese myself, I live in lisbon. I very much like the north of portugal.., Braga..., Viana do Castelo . It is almost a diferent country compared with the south. People in Porto sometimes call the southern fellows as moors , a reference to the muslim invasion in 711. Southerns are moorish at the eyes of the northerners