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Published: September 22nd 2008
Day 10: Tomar
We knew there was a bus heading towards Fatima and Tomar, we just didn't know what time exactly. The night before I asked the restaurant owner at what time it passes and he gave me an estimation between 7am and 8:30am. To put this into perspective I'm on vacation, I do not want to get up at 6:30am to catch a bus that may or may not leave two hours later when the bus stop is right across the street.
The bus came....8:15am
Moving on, were right back on track were we left of yesterday in a straight line to Tomar. Another picturesque little town with a nice town square and beautiful
azulejos, traditional blue tiles. But what this little cute adorable little village has and what others don't have is a Gigantic Headquarters of
Order of Templers. You know the guys that organized the crusades! Killed in name of God!
Anyway this is one impressive castle, it's so impressive that nobody in the whole history of it even tried to conquer it. Everything you see is made in such a way that they were able to defend it from the inside.
The Order of Templers pledged allegiance to the Pope. Somebody didn't like the might the Order obtained, so under pressure of somebody, the French king, the Pope disbanded the Order and prosecuted the Templers.
The Portuguese king disagreed and the surviving Templers were reinstated in a new order called the
Order of Christ. And so they continued to do what ever it is they do...
After our visit we dashed to the train station and headed of to
Lisboa.
Let me tell you something about our beautiful legs. Walking is a thing we have been doing a lot lately. Walking from the train station to the camping is literally a stroll through the park. This park, however, isn't your average park. This park, called
Parque de Monsanto, is probably larger than Leuven, it is not just a park but a huge forest inside a city and walking through takes about two to three hours...somebody forgot to mention exactly how large it was!
Arrived, put up camp, head in to town for dinner. We chose a typical local restaurant with nice halogen lights, filled with locals and football playing on the TV. We order something...the menu was
in Portuguese..we knew
Peixe, fish and
Porco, pork. It was nice nevertheless!
Some cocktails....and then back to HQ
signing of with the Order of Christ
the backpackers
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