Day 6: Lisbon – Tomar – Fatima – Batalha – Porto Thursday April 24 2025
Lunch at leisure in Fatima before heading to the Monastery of Batalha, one of the best and original examples of Late Flamboyant Gothic architecture in Portugal. Then you will be transferred to your hotel in Porto. Dinner at leisure and overnight in Porto. (Breakfast)
After breakfast at the hotel we were ready with our luggage for pick up at 8:45.
We arrived around 11:15 and it was another optional tour for a fee of 13€ each. Some chose not to come.
As usual Pedro's time management skills and enthusiasm for the topic meant the tour was 90 minutes not the 45-60 he promised. This meant we never saw the town itself which I've read is a treasure.
We love anything Templar so we paid our entrance (by card).
My first love of the Templars was from Dan Brown and then a book I read in 2005 Kate Mosse's trilogy.
London England 2009
New York City NY 2010
Carcassonne France 2019
We can thank the Knights Templar for all this, that ultra-secret organization who quietly decamped from the light into the shadows centuries ago, who holed themselves up in an obscure town, securing their power base for eternity, and who still control everything. Though some might deny it, they’re still around, centered in Tomar, the type of small town that author Dan Brown would be prowling around, taking notes for his next conspiracy theory thriller book.
It’s called various names, such as Tomar Castle, but known mostly as the Convent of Christ (Convento de Cristo). It’s a church, a monastery, a headquarters, and a fortress, receiving heavy use in all these areas. It’s a massive complex that sits on a hill right, I mean right, over the town, ever-looming. Most Euro sites can be somewhat categorized. That’s the old castle of the king. That’s the cathedral. This Tomar site is different, because it’s connected to an organization that’s different, and little understood. For this, we need to go back to the source.
The name of the Knights Templar comes from the original “The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and the Temple of Solomon”, translated variously as “The Knights of the Poor Temple”. They started around the year 1129 (sources vary) after the first Crusade, as a monastic protection unit for Christian pilgrims traveling to the Holy Land. Their headquarters at the time was a place on the Temple Mount, above Solomon’s temple, thus the connection. They first ran on donations, but wealthy people gave not just money but lands and other revenue streams, and thus they became independent, and eventually so wealthy they financed projects of their own. The mystique came when the pope made them exempt from local laws and borders, and thus they were above it all, for quite a while.
The Knights Templar, so rich now, had some enemies, especially a French king who persuaded the Pope to disband the organization in 1312. He owed them money anyway and this would cancel the debt. The Holy Land was by then controlled by the Arabs, so the purpose of the Knights was vague anyway. Their secretive status was publicized to be used as a charge against them, but that also added to their mystique. The Knights’ land, their wealth, all taken. Except in Portugal, where King Dinis persuaded the Pope to let him create a new organization, the Order of Christ, and transfer everything to that, which was just an accounting trick.
Let’s review: the Knights Templar was large, secretive, powerful, rich, international, meddling, and above the law. That’s enough to suspect them of everything. The symbols and rituals they invented, such as the red cross, were later used in Masonic organizations, thus implying a connection. (Aha!) They’re connected with the Ark of the Covenant, the Kabbalah, and the Illuminati, but you knew that. Nowadays, they are dredged up to be used in The Da Vinci Code book, in Assassin’s Creed video game, and proposed as a connection to the mystery of Oak Island, Nova Scotia, along with a million other usages. Because their assets were taken after being disbanded, there are still rumors of Templar wealth, of hoards hidden from papal and royal eyes. If some medieval cache is discovered in southern France next week, someone will try to connect it back to the Knights.
Former seat of the Order of the Knights Templar, Tomar is a city of great charm for its artistic and cultural wealth, whose greatest expression is in the Convent of Christ, one of the chief works of the Portuguese Renaissance.
Deserted cloister where the knight slept. Bob (American foursome) asked the question - these walls look freshly painted ?? Yes, piped up Sister Oregon, they were black when I was here in YYYY. Pedro said "good question", and explained that, yes, the walls had been painted and paid for by Netflix for the movie as the town couldn't afford to pay for it.
The town of Tomar, Portugal, served as a filming location for the Netflix movie "Damsel", particularly for scenes depicting the kingdom of Aurea. Specifically, the Convento de Cristo (Monastery of Christ), a former Templar headquarters, was used for scenes of the castle grounds and wedding locations within the Unesco World Heritage site. The town's historical architecture and landscapes contributed to the film's visual aesthetics.
The church is marvelous. A center column serves as altar and leads to gothic arches at its top. The decoration is rather colorful, with lots of gold, eastern influences. It’s circular, and it’s said the Knights attended on horseback, as knights should.
Convent of Christ The Charola (Rotunda) is the oldest part. This Templar chapel was built in the 12th century, like the castle, which was at the time the Kingdom’s most up-to-date and advanced military set-up, inspired by the fortifications of the Holy Land. It was converted into a Chancel during the restoration works ordered by King Manuel I in the 16th century, when the complex gained the architectural splendour, kept intact to this day, which earned it World Heritage Site status.
It’s worth visiting the Convent at length to discover some of its precious details, such as the depictions on the Renaissance portal, the unique symbolism of the Manueline Window in the Chapter Hall, the architectural details in the Main Cloister and the spaces connected to Templar rituals.
On to Fatima, which we were not keen on, having been traumatized by Lourdes in France (see day 8 and 9).
This tiny village first became known in the early 20th century. On May 13th, 1917, three young children named Lucia (10), Francisco (9), and Jacinta (7), claimed to have seen apparitions of the Virgin Mary while out grazing their flock. These apparitions, known as Our Lady of Fatima, continued over the following 6 months, with each taking place on the 13th day of the month.
The Fatima prophecies, revealed to three young shepherds in 1917, consist of three secrets entrusted to Sister Lucia. The first secret is a vision of hell, the second predicts the end of World War I and the beginning of another, and the third concerns the persecution of the Church, particularly the assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II. The prophecies also include a call to conversion and a request for the consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mar
Despite much local scrutiny and the efforts of Fatima’s Mayor to discredit the apparitions and debunk the claims made by the children, word spread like wildfire both locally and nationally, and Fatima quickly became an unexpected gateway to the divine.
We are pointed in the direction of the Fatima churches and given 90 minutes to have lunch and look around. The majority (sheeple) followed the guide to the churches while a few went in search of food.
Fatima is quiet and nothing like Lourdes. There are plenty of religious gift shops with gaudy souvenirs.
There weren't that many restaurant choices so we settled quickly. We only saw the 2 American sisters?? walk by, look at the menu and move on only to come back a little later and tell the server they wanted to talk to us. Really?? They asked what we ordered and decided to sit down. I hate recommending anything to anyone.
I never thought I'd see a bottle of this again, a throwback to the 80s. But it was good and cold!
I had the lamb stew which was good but had plenty of bones. They shared it behind me after questioning whether they had to pay for the bread and olives (yes).
John had the doner, we're still not sure if it was pork, chicken or ham.
We then had time to walk down to the churches.
The Capelinha das Aparições marks the spot where the Virgin Mary allegedly appeared in 1917. Other sacred sites include the Basílica de Nossa Senhora do Rosário, with its golden angels, and the modern church of Igreja da Santíssima Trindade.
We're all at the meeting place, on time when Pedro appears all in a flap. It seems our bus wouldn't start so they were sorting out getting a new bus. In the meantime we had 30 minutes to kill so everyone (almost) headed to a bar for cold beers.
Vladimir, our driver, arranged with the French bus driver to pick us up and take us to Batalha. We made a stop at dead bus to pick up our belongings on the bus. They had, in the meantime, obtained a new bus and our luggage had been moved to it.
We learn later, that the driver of the French bus, was Vladimir's partner.
Batalha Monastery is the most important Portuguese gothic building and quite a prominent one in the Iberian Peninsula and Europe. It is also the cradle of manueline architecture. The monastery was first listed as National Monument in 1907 and 1910, and as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1983.
The Monastery of the Dominicans of Batalha was built to commemorate the victory of the Portuguese over the Castilians at the battle of Aljubarrota in 1385. It was to be the Portuguese monarchy's main building project for the next two centuries. Here a highly original, national Gothic style evolved, profoundly influenced by Manueline art, as demonstrated by its masterpiece, the Royal Cloister.
The main entrance of the church is through the porch on the west facade. On both sides of this portal are sculptures of the twelve apostles standing on consoles. In the centre is a high relief statue of Christ in Majesty surrounded by the Evangelists, framed by six covings decorated with sculptures of biblical kings and queens, prophets and angels holding musical instruments from the Middle Ages. This great profusion of sculptures is completed by the crowning of the Virgin Mary.
The design has been attributed to the English architect Master Huguet. The chapel's floor plan consists of an octagonal space inserted in a square, creating two separate volumes that combine most harmoniously. The ceiling consists of an eight-point star-shaped lantern. The most dramatic feature is to be found in the centre of the chapel: the enormous medieval tomb of Dom João I and his wife, Queen Philippa of Lancaster. Bays in the chapel walls contain the tombs of their sons, among them Prince Henry the Navigator.
We have time to kill while we wait for the new bus to arrive.
By now we are very behind schedule and it is dark as we check into our Porto hotel.
Then we had the evening to ourselves. Pedro had said not to go walking around our hotel and we were about a 15 minute drive from the centre of town. We opted to go to the bar and had a charcuterie board. Connie (aka sorority mother) and her suffering husband John asked to join us. They are American and hate Trump with a vengeance so that was the topic of conversation. She is loud and he is so soft spoken.
Great photos of your tour Jackie. I was in Leiria, a couple of years ago for a wedding and we went to nearby Batalha to meet with a cousin who lives there, but we didn't have time to go inside. Last time I visited it must have been over 20 years ago! Fatima gets very, very busy during the month of May, otherwise I think it's manageable.
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