Day 8 - In Tomar

Today is to be a rest day. That was decided yesterday, as we were completing a very long, hilly, confusing and, latterly, wet day.

Yesterday's trek was a part of the story, the other parts are that we had been told that Tomar is a very interesting city and well worth a good few hours of exploration. That is something that is difficult to do when you are walking to new destinations each day. The final part of the decision is to do with places we have yet to reach.

I've mentioned before that the “main” guidebook for this, (and other Caminos), is organised on roughly 30km per day stages. We feel that this stage length is too far, particularly to do day-after-day. However for our next stage there is no choice. There are simply no places to stay in the 30+km between Tomar and the next town, Alvaiazere. The countryside between is also rather hilly. That combination leaves us with limited choices. We had considered several alternatives, walk out half way and get transport back, in a similar fashion to that used by us leaving Lisbon. Get transport all the way to Alvaiazere; OR the method we have chosen. Our final choice, after checking transport etc today, is to go by bus to an intermediate point, round about half way, and then walk the rest of the way to Alvaiazere.

We have confirmed that our plan is feasible. There is indeed a bus tomorrow morning to Alvaiazere that stops at a suitable point, i.e. where it's route crosses the Camino route. So that's what we'll do.

Having sorted that out we had time on our hands. As advised, we spent some time exploring the city. We first visited the tourist office, had our credentials stamped, and got advice on where to visit. The major feature of the city is the castle/convent that towers over everything. It is an ancient Knights Templar stronghold from East back. From below it looks impressive, from within the building itself, it is incredible. It is an amazing amalgam of ancient castle, and an enormous deserted convent. It sounds a strange mixture, but that's what it is. We spent a long while exploring the place, starting by having a strenuous walk up the steep hill from the town centre simply to get to the castle. We could have got the bus, but we are supposed to be walkers after all.

First impressions are that it is bigger than it looks, final impressions are that it is vastly bigger than it looks. It took over two hours simply to look around, and there are places that we didn't get to. It's very well preserved and only 3 euros entrance fee. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

After leaving the castle/convent we walked back down into the town look around there. Again there is lots to see. Many churches, as is normal in this part of the world, a beautiful river area and quaint streets and shops.

Oh yes, by the way it rained, heavily. And it's easy to recognise Portuguese post-boxes

One place that I must mention was one we saw near the bus station, before visiting the castle. That is the museum of matches. The sort that you use to start a fire, that is.

We didn't go in, but the notice claims that it is the world’s largest collection of things to do with matches, including over 40,000 match boxes. Why?

Another unusual feature, again with exhibits in various places, is a tradition of young girls creating very tall hat-like structures and then wearing these for various parades around the town. 

This tradition "The Festa dos Tabuleiros" takes place every four years. Each hat has to contain a number of small loaves of bread and a great collection of flowers, usually artificial these days an arranged in specific ways. The structure had to be the same height as the girl and apparently weighs about 15-29 kg.Quite heavy, and a strange custom. The link above gives full details, it's all very strange.

There is even a monument to the tradition on the local traffic roundabout.

The rest of today was spent doing a little washing and, for me, finally getting our previous blogs transferred to the new blog website at folksfrom62.blogspot.com, complete with relevant photographs. 

Please go there and see what you've missed. 

Also please let us know what you think, as it's difficult for us to see the actual finished items. Every time I log in the system recognises my log in and takes me directly to the editor, which doesn't quite give Mr the views that you see. All, reasonable, suggestions accepted.