Portugal 14 Batalha , a fantastic monastery , a hot pork sandwich, fado music and pumpkins everywhere

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Day 14 day of our holiday . Pumpkin day. There are pumpkins growing everywhere. Big ones and small ones , some still green, others turning orange. Enough to fill a lot of pumpkin pies or turn into shells in which to place tea lights on Halloween. Today was another blazing hot day with the sun beaming down. Weather back home in Britain is as usual awful from all accounts so we feel blessed that we are still getting sunny days which are at least as good as we were getting over the summer back home. We are reaching the end of the fire season here. From June to late September there is the risk of fires in the wooded areas of which there are many.

Today is more motorway driving day and to top it all Glenn has managed to crack his back tooth. We have emergency tooth kits which provide materials for missing fillings and glue to use to put on a crown but nothing that will work on a cracked cusp of a tooth. Luckily he has an appointment with the dentist a week after we return home so it should last until then.


I am of course still worried about toll problems as we have a few more motorways to use before we finally leave Portugal for Spain. Went through the first toll , no ping, I have to swear, bugger all happened. Then the overhead ping, ping, ping. It is like pot luck.

We were heading for Batalha. What is there to see? Well we guessed not a lot apart from the monastery which is quite famous. We drove Suzy through the town and headed for the free aire. We found it although it did take a bit of tooing and froing to get on it. It was large , it was free and there were quite a few other motorhomers already there. You can stop just a few hours or you can stay overnight .

We parked up Suzy and walked past many restaurants. We thought they might do for dinner but none had boards outside advertising what they offered nor a price . That always puts us off . We think if we have to ask the price then we cannot afford to eat there.

Our destination was the monastery . It stretched around the block and was weathered grey half way up. Turrets , gables, gothic arches it had the lot. The bottom half of the building though looked very yellow either where the rain had washed down and stained it or the local community had ruined it by pressure jetting it to clean it. I know which bit I preferred and it was not the cleaned bit.

Batalha Monastery is a stunningly ornate Gothic creation dating mostly to the reign of King Joao I. This king began building Batalha Monastery - the full name of which is Mosteiro Santa Maria da Vitória - in thanks to the Virgin Mary for victory at the battle of Aljubarrota in 1385. King Joao and his family would also be buried here.

Successive kings such as Duarte and Manuel I continued to add to Batalha Monastery, making their mark on this important structure. Blending a rich history with impressive architecture.

The chapel itself is free to enter as long as you don't want to visit the royal tombs nor the cloisters. We paid and went inside . The church is less austere than Alcobaca and the tombs are pretty impressive each one set in a niche. The carving of the first few was pretty crisp and was as good as the day it was carved but later tombs either were less ornate or the carver was less skilled . Perhaps even the stone was less durable as the carvings had fared less well over the years.

Our next visit was to the cloisters. Fantastically quiet they were interesting to walk around. Manueline carvings and open windows with gardens inside them. There was a museum to the first world war with items of interest from guns to helmuts to battle honours. Finally the tomb of the unknown soldiers. Not one soldier but two taken from two theatres of war. Inside it was reverently quiet and gloomy with an eternal light burning above the tomb. Two soldiers stood still ceremoniously protecting the tomb and the dead within it. I stood thinking it was someones father, brother, uncle, nephew or son but who were they? Last year at home we commemorated the start of the first world war with a display of poppies outside the Tower of London. One for each man lost in the great war. This year 2015 we have commemorated the D Day landings, the liberation of Europe and the liberation of the far east . Fly pass by Spitfires and Vulcans have become commonplace . In fact a couple of weeks ago four Spitfires flew over our home. The drone brought on a strange feeling. The guards changed on the hour and the visitors piled in . They asked for silence and we kept it . The tour groups however did not as their voices raised until there was a carcophony of sound in the room .

We left and walked to a cafe for dinner. A strange day in a way. The cafe was empty apart from men . men in their 20's and 30's. Why were they not working? Men over 40 but under 60. Then there were the retirees. No women and I as always felt rather out of place. I ordered fresh orange juice and two hot pork sandwiches . They were delicious and we ate them listening to a young lady who seemed to be drilling something. The drone slightly less loud than the dentists drill . Behind her a shop selling dresses to wear at Fado events. Over this a dull alto female voice singing the songs of lost love and regretted moments. The word fado means destiny or fate and the style began in the 1820's but probably has a much earlier history. We read that fado can be about anything but has to follow a tradional structure. This is a little like the poetry that can be entered to our own Eisteddfod in the competition for the Chair or the Crown . Lyrics can be about the sea or the life of the poor but must be enthused with a sense of longing which comes over in the music and the tone. A sort of Portuguese hiraeth - this is the welsh word of longing . Untranslateable it means a longing for home, much deeper than words can convey, a need for the homeland and a feeling of emptyness within. Resignation, fatefulness and melancholia bring up the rear of fado.

After our introduction to fado we walked back to Suzy. Slowly and full of thoughts of home, of family and of what we planned to do next . It has been a funny old holiday.

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