Early the next morning, I woke up, gathered lots of really dirty clothes & headed to a laundry mat I saw yesterday. We've been gone 9 weeks and washing things by hand…it was time! A dark load & a light color load and $15 later…we had clean clothes! By 9 I was done. Rog spent the time doing logistic work. We had to catch a train…which we barely made…to Lisbon…where we had to switch train…which we barely made. But we did and off to Tomar we headed. At first the flat fields were spring green with wheat growing, then rolling grapevine or small tree covered hills. We passed huge fields of solar panels and about 15 windmills. Most houses are painted white & have clay tile roofing. Many have grape vines & lemon or orange trees in their well kept yards.
We arrived in Tomar and only had a few steps to our bnb as it's part of the train station. It's newly remodeled and our host is a cheery girl who use to be a lawyer in Paris. She's loving her new life. After we'd put our bags in our nice room, we walked around the square right in front which included an old church. While I walked around the church, I saw a statue with electric candles. I put my 20 E in and another candle lit up. Modern! We caught an electric bus to take us to the top of the hill to the Convento de Christo and the Knights of the Temblar castle. The castle had tall, crumbling walls that we could walk. Unfortunately, the convent was under construction so we headed back to town where we attempted to go inside several other churches…all closed or under construction. It's Monday. Did find out that the convent was actually open—the entrance had been moved. You'd think they'd put a sign about that at the old entrance! We decided we should stay another day in Tomar…we had a nice room, we had lots to do around here and it was a quiet town to chill in.
Next morning, our host served us a bountiful breakfast which we packed a bit away for lunch. Then off we went determined to see Convento de Christo…and it was worth the second time. The circular church was incredible…said to be built round so that the knights could attend on horseback. The hallways had so many small bedrooms for the nuns. The courtyards had altars & shires in every corner. Made me think those nuns lived a pretty good life. We ate our lunch of left-over breakfast & then got on a bus to Fatima. Fatima—very old memories can be back to me of the St. Joe's grotto and the stone in the archway with a plague saying it was from Fatima. Each time I walked under that archway, I'd touch that stone & make the sign of the cross. I thought of the new blue dress & blue anklets I wore as I watched Brigid (my best friend and later Maid of Honor) climb a ladder to place a crown of flowers on the Blessed Mother statue that was cradled in the stone grotto. the holiness and devotion to the Blessed Mother flooded my mind as I walked around the church built on the site where the 3 young children saw Mary several times. We watched a video that showed photos of the children and the crowd of supposedly 70,000 that stood in the pouring rain and witnessed the dancing sun on Oct 13, 1917. The church was massive with side chapel surrounding a replica of the tiny first church & and area where people were lighting huge candles. Lots of them! A humongous new modern church stood across the enormous middle square. But I was looking for the stone grotto which wasn't there…not even in the video. Only in Dexter. Later I wrote to Brigid, Bev & Mary Ann about my time at Fatima and all wrote back they too had lots of memories. We still had lots of time before our bus, so we went to the rosary exhibit and a Fatima museum. It had a several rooms filled with items gifted to the church: golden roses, challises, jewelry,medals, wedding dresses, army uniforms, swords and even aa bicycle ridden by an 82 year old on his pilgrimage to Fatima. Inside one of the crowns they placed the bullet that hit Pope John Paul II. To be totally honest, I was overwhelmed with the decadence and felt that the wealth would feed & house so many poor and/or be used to help in our fight of global warming that is causing so much pain & devastation in our world today. It was a sobering though & just thinking it brought back my Catholic guilt.
We got back to our room about 8 and actually watched an old movie, My Friend's Wedding.
