I’m so far behind in blogging that I’m not even going to try to catch up. I’m just going to summarize the last five days in Portugal and share my photo albums. It seems a suitable approach, because so much of the last five days felt too fast, with whirlwind visits to places I would have liked to linger. Lisbon needed much more than two days, especially since we spent a good portion of one of those days outside the city. I would have liked more time in Sintra and in Évora. Perhaps I would have been better off doing Spain and Portugal on my own, as I originally planned, rather than touring with OAT.
Tomar
I decided to stop for a night in Tomar on my way to Lisbon, and that was a very good decision. Tomar is a pleasant medieval town, but the main highlights were the Castle and Convento de Cristo.
The castle and convent date from the 12th century. They were originally a stronghold of the Knights Templar. The castle has three important features: a keep, or central tower; round towers in the walls, which are better than square towers at resisting attacks; and the alambor, or rounded base of the walls, which caused projectiles to bounce away. All of these were innovations introduced by the Knights Templar to Portugal, and this castle has the oldest examples in the country.
All I can say about the convent is it wowed me. Along with the Mosque-Cathedral of Córdoba, it’s the most stunning piece of religious architecture I’ve seen in the Iberian peninsula. Here was my second encounter with Manueline architecture. (My first was in Coimbra, but I don’t think I recognized it at the time.) Originating in the 16th century, during the Portuguese Renaissance and Age of Discoveries. Manueline architecture incorporates maritime elements and representations of the discoveries brought from the voyages of Vasco da Gama and Pedro Álvares Cabral. It includes Mudéjar, Italian, and Flemish influences and marks a transition from the Gothic to the Renaissance.
Mary with the infant Jesus is flanked by St. Jerome and St. Augustine on the left and St. Gregory and St. Ambrose on the right.
But the highlight of the convent is the round church, dating from the late 15th century.
I managed to explore a lot of Tomar in the afternoon and morning I had there. You can see all my photos, including lots more of both the castle and the convent, in my album.
Lisbon
As I mentioned, I would have happily enjoyed at least one more day in Lisbon. We had a walking tour, after which I went to the National Tile Museum. That filled up an entire day. The second day we had a day tripi to Sintra (see below) and a stop in Belém on our way back to Lisbon. (The photo up top is Belém Tower, another great example of Manueline architecture. It was built as a kind of gateway at the entrance of the Tagus River for the Age of Discovery.) I was not feeling well, so after that I retired to my hotel room for the night while the rest of the group had home-hosted dinners. Then the next morning we were on our way out of the city.
The Tile Museum was probably the highlight of my time in Lisbon. I made a special photo album just for that. And, in fact, a lot of my other photos from Lisbon, and from all of Portugal, are tiles, which I just love.
Here is my Lisbon photo album.
Sintra
Our day trip to Sintra consisted of a tour of the Palacio Nacional de Sintra, about an hour of free time, and lunch.
The palace was interesting because it was built and added to over a long period of time, all in different styles. There are no remnants of the earliest palace from the Moorish period in the 10th or 11th century. The earliest surviving part of the palace probably dates from the early 14th century. A large section dates from the 15th century and the reign of King João I, and an additional building campaign took place under Manuel I in the early 16th century and in, of course, Manueline style. Portuguese royalty continued to use the palace on and off through the 19th century, so there have been many updates over the centuries. Finally, in 1910, it became a national monument.
The town of Sintra is also lovely. It was raining for much of our time there, but I still managed to enjoy it. And I would like to have visited the castle at the top of the hill, but there was no time for that.
Alentejo
After the Portuguese government dissolved all the religious institutions in 1834, monasteries and convents fell into disuse and disrepair. In the 20th century, under the Salazar regime, many of these were converted into hotels called pousadas.
After we left Lisbon, we finished our time in Portugal with two days in the Alentejo region. We stayed at Pousada Convento de Arraiolos. And we explored a number of places in the region.
On our way east, we stopped first in Azeitão, where we visited a tile manufacturer that does everything by hand. We had a go at our own tile painting. They are going to fire our tiles and send them ahead to us. We should receive them in a week or so, when we get to Toledo. I dread seeing how badly mine turned out.
Then we visited a farm of sorts, where we met a woman who showed us how to make cheese. We had lunch there.
From there we went to Évora, a fabulous place full of history where we only got to spend a couple of hours. Some of the tours stay in Évora; ours, unfortunately, stayed about a half hour drive from there in Arraiolos. I would have gone back to Évora the next day (we had that option, as we were passing through on our day of explorations), but it was Easter Sunday, and not much would be open to see there.
So our Easter started with a visit to a cork manufacturer called Cortiçarte. They explained how cork production work, much too quickly because two other tour groups arrived shortly after we did. And they let us loose in their shop. I was impressed by the kinds of items they make, but not enough to buy anything.
Our next stop was a small wine producer. In the village of Vila de Frades, they make wine using clay amphorae. The wine is not aged very long at all, and I didn’t find it especially appealing. (The method is very similar to what I learned about on my trip to Georgia, where they call the clay pots kvevri. Here they are called talha. Same idea, but the Georgians definitely do it better.
Back in Arraiolos, we walked around the town, got a demonstration on how they make empadas, little meat pies a little like empanadas but shaped differently. I bought some to have for dinner later, and they were not bad.
We also visited a couple of shops where they do tapestry, which is a big thing in Arraiolos. In fact, there is a tapestry museum, and we visited that. It was small but a nice exhibit of local tapestries from the 17th century to the present day.
We walked back to our pousada, and I took a detour to visit Arraiolos Castle.
Anything else you want to know about my last few days in Portugal you can get by visiting my photo albums. In case you missed them:
Since I neglected to include very many photos here, you will definitely want to check out these albums. There’s a lot of detail I’ve omitted from my descriptions, plus a lot of gorgeous scenery and wildflowers I took pictures of.
I actually wrote a lot more than I planned to when I started out.
Sharon Eilertson
Your information and descriptions are awesome. I loved all of your photos!! It was fun sharing part of our OAT trip with you. Thank you so much for sharing your photos and information!!!