Next morning off to another day of sightseeing in Tomar. We walked by a cemetery which always pulls me in to see how it's done in other countries. Most were slabs with pictures attached to the fancy headstones and lots of fake flowers. There were also many family vaults and some you could see inside & count the caskets piled inside. One had 8…two of them just mall caskets. We headed to the Convento of St. Iria (Irene) only to find it completely under construction. St Iria's story is a love story where she gets killed & thrown into the river & her body is found days later in perfect condition. At least we got to learn her story. We walked the river walk until we got to the old Templar mills newly refurbished to house offices & a museum full of early generators & iron work machinery. I slid into one more church on the way back. Then we got on the bus again headed to Batalha & later to Alcobaco, both of them on the map for their monasteries. The first was built after a small Portugal army defeated a huge Castile army. The commander had prayed to Mary & promised to build it if he won. He did and he did build a magnificent Santa Maria de Victoria church with flying buttresses, describe pinnacles and detailed arches with the high test vaulted interior in all of Portugal. Even today. The king & queen (shown holding hands) tombs are here. Their marriage cemented the bond between Portugal & England. Their son, Henry the Navigator is also buried here. Seems we've followed him around: first in the Maritime Museum in Liston, then in Timor where he lived & here where he is buried. Later we'll go to Porto where he was born!). A somber plain monastery is next to it and just outside you come to a roofless octagonal shaped chapel that though never finished, it's beauty is intensified by the blue sky & light shining in. The 15m doorway in itself is a master piece of architecture. A taxi took us to the next monastery, de Santa Maria. Founded by the first kind of Portugal again because of a vow made to the Blessed Mother for winning a battle. Though not as decadent as the one in Batalha, it's monastery rooms were rich in history: a narrow door which determined if monks had to go on a diet, the grand kitchen with a water channel built to divert fresh fish & a room full of statues of kings and most interesting, the graves of King Don Pedro & his lover who became queen after she was killed thanks to Pedro's father. Don Pedro had her body dug us, put in a throne & crowned. Their tombs are situated so their feet face each other so that when they rise from the dead, the first thing they see is each other. How romantic! We caught the bus back to our nice bnb in Tomar. Tomorrow we leave but we're glad we stayed an extra day in this extra nice hotel & town.
The train north to Caimbra pulled out at 10:10 am. It's a pleasant way to travel! We had to make one switch but no problem. We passed lots of large fields of spring green crops & saw tractors working in other fields getting them ready to plant. After a while, hills & rocky soil were more common. Housing appears less well-to-do but still nice. A fun sight was a power tower with about 10 stork nest in it & mama storks flying all around it! We have seen lots of stork nest.
