Today we start our next visit to yet another monastery. We're in Tomar. Tomar is a small, quaint town that we didn't even get a chance to see. We were there for just a night and had other things on the agenda.
Tomar is has an interesting history to it. It's home to the Convento de Cristo, the former headquarters of the Knights Templar. Don't be fooled by the word "Convento" aka Convent. This isn't a convent with nums, but instead a monastery. Why they used convent is beyond me.
The Knights Templar made it home here. When I hear the Knights Templar I think The DaVinci Code and all the mystery that goes along with it. That's far from the what they really were.
"The Knights Templar was an elite fighting force and semi-religious order
that was founded in 1119, during the Crusades. Under the guidance of Gualdim
Pais, the visionary Grand Master of the Portuguese Knights, the order began
construction of a castle on the hill overlooking Tomar around 1160. The design
of the castle’s famous ‘rotunda’ church was inspired by similar structures in
Jerusalem. Each knight took a vow of poverty and chastity and wore a white coat
emblazoned with a red cross. Over the years, the Templars spread across Europe,
gaining extraordinary wealth in the process – and also many powerful enemies!
By the early 1300s, amid accusations of heresy, the order was finally
suppressed. However, in Portugal, the Templars re-emerged again in 1320,
reincarnated as the ‘Order of Christ’, but now under the control of the throne.
It was thanks to the wealth of this new order that Prince Henry the Navigator
(who was Grand Master from 1417-1460) was able to fund Portugal’s legendary
maritime voyages. The order’s proud symbol – the Cross of Christ – became the
distinguished banner for the country’s great age of exploration and discovery.
From the 13th to the 17th century, the Convento de Cristo underwent a
continuous expansion to become the superb monument it is today." - The Best of Portugal
The Convent of Christ is amazing. The architecture is unlike anything I had seen. I'm used to monasteries being simple, yet beautiful. This one was anything by simple.
After climbing I don't even know how many steps we were greeted with the entrance into the monastery. If you've traveled, you know you must always look up and you most likely will be greeted with amazing ceilings.
You walk through this little room and then are amazed at this ornate, round chapel.
The Interwebs: Built over the span of five centuries, the Convent of Christ is a testimony to an architecture
combining Romanesque, Gothic, Manueline, Renaissance, Mannerist and Baroque
elements. The Convent’s centrepiece is its 12th century rotunda, Oratory of the
Templars, influenced by Jerusalem’s Holy Sepulchre Rotunda. It was built by the
first great master of the Templars, this is
one of the typical "rotondas" of Templar architecture of which few
examples are still extant in Europe. In 1356, the Convent became the home of
the Order of Christ in Portugal and the rotunda’s decoration reflects the
Order’s wealth. The paintings and frescos depicting mainly 16th century
biblical scenes, as well as the gilt statuary under the Byzantine dome were
carefully restored.
Outside of this chapel is the cloister. I love this part of monasteries. The arches, the columns, all of it come together to make some amazing photos. I can almost imaging monks and knights wandering these halls. Almost.
Outside the chapel and the cloisters is one large, ornate window, done in Manueline style, incorporating Templar
symbols and knotwork sculpture, only seen from the rooftop of the adjacent
Claustro de Santa Bárbara.
We also got to visit the monks dormitories. As I expected, they were simple and not as ornate as the rest of the monastery. The tour guide told us that the only heat source was at the far end of the dorm, all the rooms were connected by doors and that's the only way heat got to your room, If you were unlucky enough to have a room at the end of the hall, chances were high you had no heat. But I suppose as monks they didn't complain.
The walls of this dormitory were covered with this ornate, hand-painted tiles in the traditional blue and white that is seen throughout Portugal.
The dining room. Not very comfortable seating I might add. The tour guide said that at their peek they had 900 monks here. This dining room would not fit 900 monks, so they must have eaten in shifts. Though she didn't mention that.
After our time with the monks and the convent, we headed out to our next destination, the University of Coimbra.
It's said that JK Rowling got her inspiration on the uniforms for Hogwarts from the university. The students here do wear black capes. We found almost all the universities in Portugal use these black capes as a uniform. They don't wear them all the time, but when you see a young person in a black cape you know immediately they are attending the university. And the students wear these capes with pride.
We asked about tuition to this university and was surprised to hear how reasonable it was. Cost to attend under grad is 700EU a year. If you go into a Masters it raises to 1000EU, and a doctorate it increases to 3000EU a year. So inexpensive, but it's also very competitive.
What was interesting about the beginning of the tour, we were introduced to the school "prison". Yep, they had a prison for students. When we asked what a student had to do to get put in prison, the answer was simple "anything from missing class, being disruptive in class or other insubordinate behaviors". Students would be assigned to the prison and their stay there was dependent on their crimes.
But the big WOW of this campus is the library. The Baroque Library is this beautiful room filled with books from all over the world and some are centuries old. The library houses some bats too to help keep the insect population down and keep the insects from destroying the books. We didn't see the bats, but we were assured they were there.
We weren't allowed to take photos in this library so I snatched this photo from the internet to show you just how beautiful it was.
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| Photo credit to the World's Monument Fund sight. |
Done with Coimbra and their amazing library, we hit the road to Porto so we can have a rest before our dinner river cruise.
To get to the water front for the boat cruise, we had to walk down more narrow alleys and tried our best to not trip and fall on the cobblestones.
The boat cruise was a nice way to see Porto from the river. We floated along the water and were gifted with amazing sites of Porto and the 6 bridges built across the river.
The most interesting is one built by the same guy who built the Eiffel tower.
Dinner was a nice 3 course meal at a local restaurant serving traditional Portuguese food (though I suppose they just call it "food".)
Our dinner started with appetizers of chorizo, ham, fried cod, olives and this cheese/ham bread that was amazing. There was also this little bowl of what we thought was a tarter sauce only to find out it was some type of pate.
That was followed by bachlau a bras, and fried chicken with potatoes. Our dessert we weren't really sure what it was. The chocolate / cream pudding on the top of some weird crust was good.
But y'all, the best part of this entire meal was the coffee. The Portuguese love their coffee and are the quintessential coffee snobs. Their coffee is so smooth and not bitter at all. They drink it in small amounts and they leave a big punch.
When we were done with the dinner we were greeted with Porto at night. The monastery up on the hill was all lit up and just beautiful.
Shortly after this photo was taken, we had another of our group trip and fall breaking her ankle. It made me even more paranoid about watching my every step.
Tomorrow we'll start the day with a tour of the Stock Exchange building in Porto and the Church of Sao Francisco.
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