Saturday 9/7/19 – Well yesterday was church day and today was Castle day. I did another tour with Cool Tours Lisbon and there were only 5 of us on the tour. Ricardo was the tour guide and he was almost as good as Fabio!
The main theme of this tour was all around a group called the Knights Templar. I had never heard of them and I’m assuming you haven’t either so of course a little history for perspective!
The Knights Templar was a rich organization, both a popular Christian charity and Europe’s first great bankers. Pilgrims deposited their money with the Templars and could make withdrawals along their journey to the Holy Land. (Sort of like the first Travelers Cheques!). The Templars, you could call them the first multinational corporation, built and managed about a thousand forts to aid Christian pilgrims stretching from Portugal all the way to Jerusalem.
The Order of the Knights Templar was dissolved in the early 1300s in Europe but in Portugal the order just changed names to the Order of Christ. Henry the Navigator was the Grand Master/first governor of the Order of Christ.
In 1834 the Portuguese king dissolved all religious orders because he felt they had too much power.
What I saw today were two of the castles of the Knights of Templar. The first was the Castle of Almourol. It was strategically positioned on this island on the Tagus River. Due to its location and size, it was never attacked. We had to take this cute little boat over to it to visit the castle.
The next stop was to the town of Tomar where we toured the Castle of the Knights Templar and the Convent of Christ. It was built over 800 years ago and the church portion (which was attached to the castle) was modeled after the Dome of the Rock and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. It was where the Knights would go, often on horseback, to be blessed before battle as they defended Portugal against the Moors.
We then stopped to eat before heading back to Lisbon.
Pics 1-3 are of the Castle of Almourol.
Pics 4-10 are of the Castle of the Knights Templar and the Convent of Christ.
The final pic is my meal for the day. The town of Tomar has a Moroccan heritage to it so I tried the Tangine Chicken dish that’s pretty traditional Moroccan fare. The pic is kind of blurry because of all of the steam coming off of the plate! It was very tasty! And those things that look like potatoes are apples.
Happy Saturday to all! Hope everyone is having a great weekend!
The Wandering Italian 