Today the path left the river plains that it traverses for the first 6 days and for the first time there is some climbing to be done !

Soon after leaving Moita, the path heads into a eucalyptus forestry area.

I could have been walking in my home country of Australia with all these eucalypts.

There was a bit of highway walking interspersed with quiet dirt rodes.

Many home owners have beautiful flower gardens and there are also many flowers growing wild.

The path followed the railway line for a while and I found a nice shady spot for a lunch break.

Who should come past but Maggie from Quebec who I’ve been running into from time to time. She’s finding the weather very hot and tiring.

I saw my first cork trees on this walk. They’re numbered to indicate the last year they were harvested, which happens every 9 years. This tree would have last had a layer of cork bark removed in 2023. The tees live for around 200 years.

Layers of cork.
Tile work at the Chapel of San Lorenço just outside Tomar.

I arrived in Tomar early in the afternoon.

Tomar

The town of Tomar is one of the highlights of this walk. It’s dominated by a castle built by the Knights Templar in the 12th century to prevent the reconquest of the area by the Moors.

They used state of the art design principles they had learnt in the Holy Land. For example, the skirting around the bottom of the walls, visible in the image above, made tunneling under the walls extremely difficult and prevented siege machines being drawn up against the walls.

A Counterweight trebuchet from the 14th century.

In around 1190, Caliph Abu Yusuf al-Mansur besieged the castle with a large army for 5 days and then gave up, realising that it was impregnable.

In 1129, the Knights Templar were dissolved by the Pope at the instigation of the French King Phillip IV, who was deeply in debt to them. However in Portugal they survived with a new name of the Order of Christ. The castle monastery was developed over the years and today is wonderfully preserved .

Tile work with a 3D effect.
The refectory
The kitchens

There is a circular church modelled on the Church of the Sepulchre in Jerusalem, or possibly the Dome of the Rock, typical of the Templars.

It’s Monday night and a bit quiet in Tomar.

My video for today ..,.

https://www.relive.com/view/vQvx5eJz4BO