There is one direct bus a day from Coimbra to Tomar, but it leaves in the afternoon, so you need to stay overnight in Tomar, which I didn't plan on, so our only option was to take the train, which was painful. Going to Tomar, we took a regional train from Coimbra (A) to Coimbra-B, then an inter-city train (25 minutes late and the announcement of the delay was in Portuguese only) to Entrocamento, which had over 10 platforms, and no electronic display of which platform our next train was going to stop. I had to go to the ticket office and asked them. The guy called someone and told me it would be at platform 9. Gosh, how do they expect people like us to know?
1. Coimbra-B train station.
2. Entrocamento train station.
3. Church of Saint John the Baptist was under renovation, but it still let people go in for free.
4. Opposite of the church is the City Hall, where local school kids were rehearsing some music and dance pieces in front of it later in the afternoon.
5. Near the City Hall, on our way to the Convent of Christ, we happened to walk pass this hole in a wall restaurant, which smelled good, so we went in and managed to order two delicious home cooked dishes for €5 each even though no one spoke English there.
6. Some kind of pork and chorizo stew with cabbage. It even had pig feet and pig ear in it :)
7. Grilled Beef with chickpeas and greens?
8. After lunch, we followed an uphill trail and eventually reached the Templar Castle.
9. The Templar Castle was built around 1160. Later in that century, the castle was chosen as the headquarters of the Knights Templar in Portugal.
10. Convent of Christ inside the Templar Castle.
11. One of the doors of Convent of Christ.
12. The door up close.
13. Inside Convent of Christ, a wall lined with tiles in the Laundry Cloister.
14. A small chapel covered in beautiful tiles from floor to ceiling.
15. The Charola (Round Church) in the Convent of Christ is SO AMAZING!
16. The ceiling.
17. Charola.
18. Charola.
19. An ancient organ pipe in the Charola (the organ itself is long gone).
20. The famous Manueline Window.
21. Convent of Christ.
22. Convent of Christ.
23. Refectory.
(To be continued)
