We left Batalha and visited Tomar today. Our main aim being the Convento de Cristo, another UNESCO site. It was massive!
We started with some decorated rooms and cloisters. This convent had more tiling than the previous two monasteries we’d visited.
Another cloister and view onto the ruined castle.
The central chapel was quite an eye popper. It has a huge free standing octagonal structure in the centre of the room surrounded by colourful Biblical friezes. I liked the fact that the painting on one side (left side of archway, below) reflected the 3D version on the right side of the archway.
It went on and we kept coming across cloisters. I suppose with so many nuns you need space to walk and get fresh air.
On the east end of the church is an amazing stone mural. This facade was executed between 1510 and 1513 by Diogo de Arruga. It is one of the most singular examples of the late Gothic 'Manueline' style. Subsequent owners built a second floor onto the cloister in front of it was latterly removed as it hid the bottom third of the mural! Lovely stone work everywhere.
Once we’d had two hours of visit, we headed down into the centre of Tomar for a drink.
The river was interesting with its water wheel, weirs and lovely bridge.
The town was pleasant to stroll around.
We then hauled ourselves back up the hill (still not yet back to normal strength) and quickly trotted around the castle behind the convent. Lovely views despite the grey clouds.
The convent was fed by the 6 km Aqueduct Pegões. We'd spotted a sign to part of it, so we decided to explore.
Wow. Didn’t expect to find this! And didn’t expect to be able to climb up and walk along it! It has 58 arches and is 30 m above the road at its highest point.
Again, no safety rails and a 20 cm wall which was fine(ish); but being so high up bothered me after a while and once we were 30 m high I needed to return.
We returned the hire car to the airport and checked into our hotel which was a few stops down on the metro. After supper it was nice to swing by the river to say farewell.
We shall be back. Lisbon/Portugal is certainly worth a re-visit. And I'll hopefully stay a bit fitter this time.
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