Renovation Project - A day in Tomar, portugal

Renovation Project - A day in Tomar, portugal

We are leaving Lisbon today and heading inland as we really want to see some more of Portugal, our next stop is Tomar, there are many wonderful sightseeing attractions here and the Castle and the Convent of the Order of Christ are UNESCO world Heritage sites.

We find the little hotel, which is more of a local bar and workman hotel, but it has everything we need and though in the middle of nowhere in central Portugal, the bar man still speaks some English (yet again we feel very ignorant!)

We drive into the town and park near to the castle, we walk to the top (and then find there is a car park at the entrance, big tip is to always check if you can drive to the castles, as the walk up is usually difficult and very hot!)

The place is amazing, and the Round Templar Church is absolutely stunning, we decide to be scrooges and do not pay to go in but walk around the free parts, which includes a walk around the castle walls, the European standard of health and safety are in place again, i.e. nonexistent, you can lean over the edge to a very long drop down!

We head back into the town and find the tourist office; once we have our map we walk around the town and stop in the town square for a drink under the large sun umbrellas. 

The town is quite small but very picturesque, there is a large river with a very old water wheel, at the edge is a small park and as we arrive at it, there is a small festival going on, we stop to listen to the music, not the standard of Lisbon, but a nice surprise. It turns out that it is a celebration of the history of the town.

We visit a an old Synagogue and there is a guide inside that tells us about the history, this is so fascinating and the building is so well preserved.

We stop for some dinner and the restaurant is fantastic, I have a fish stew, again there is enough to feed two of us, John has a local sausage delicacy, we have never tasted sausage like this and wonder if this is part of the sausage that the guide at the Synagogue was telling us about.

We are only here for one night but we are so glad we stopped by. We leave Portugal the following morning but have decided we will definitely be coming back there is just so much to do and so much to see, in 2 weeks we have only scratched the surface, we didn’t make it to the Algarve but think we have maybe seem some of the best that Portugal has to offer.