To Santiago de Compostela: 462.8 km
Walked today: 14.4 km
Total walked: 188.4 km
Rest day. We are really getting pampered in a very nice hotel. We started with a very nice and plentiful breakfast. Anything you may want is available. What a difference from our regular days in el Caminho.
Then we went from drugstore to drugstore until we found blister plasters. ( I still need them), then to the bus station to find out bus times for tomorrow's trip to Fatima.
There was no one there but we found a large collection of posted schedules. Problem was we could not understand them. A family arrived, they were dropping a lady to take the bus so I called and asked for help. She spoke only Portuguese but somehow we communicated. She did not understand the schedule either so she called the family. Suddenly we had half a dozen people taking to each other and to us but no one knew what we needed. Finally a bus driver arrived and our crowd finally got the answer. After that a man, Joachim and a lady, Capitalina, stayed talking to us. Portuguese people once more show how great they are.
We started to walk towards the castle when we noticed that a medieval church was open, the Conveto de Sao Francisco so we took advantage of the opportunity to go in. Beautiful altar, too bad we did not have a chance to take pictures since they were about to close it.
The climb to the castle is very steep but once you get there is amazing. The Convento do Cristo is very large and is inside the castle, the stone work in the exterior is of Manueline style and the inside of the church is incredible. Supposedly it was designed to allow the knights to attend mass on horseback.
We meet a group of Portuguese nuns and we talked about our pilgrimage. They promised to pray for us. I was really touched.
This is definetly Templar territory. The Templars were warrior monks and were founded in Jerusalem in the XII century. Their only purpose was to protect pilgrims. The order grew to around 20,000 members but only about 2000 were knights. The rest included priests to look after the spiritual affairs of knights and pilgrims. They also had sargents in charge of administration. They became a very wealthy order and they invented the earliest forms of banking.
The Templar's became the best troops in the crusades and were key in the war of reconquista, expelling the moors from the Iberic peninsula
When Don Alfonso Henriques, Alfonso I of Portugal initiated the independence of Portugal he committed himself to free Portugal of the Muslims and he depended on the Templars for much of the fighting. They liberated Santarem and then Lisbon and the river Tejo became the border between Christian and Muslim lands. Alfonso and the later Portuguese kings payed the Templars with lands.
When the Templars became very rich and powerful king Philip of France who was deeply indebted to them plotted against them so on a Friday 13 arrested and tortured and killed many of the French knights forcing them to confess to all type of crimes. He push the pope until the order was banned. It is now recognised that all those charges were false.
The king of Portugal at that time received them and they changed their name to the knights of Christ. Over time the order become more religious and less military.
After the castle visit we returned to the hotel, we had a swim in the pool, rested a bit and then went to the Church of Sao Joao Bautista for mass. It was a special mass for the youth, special youth choir and very ceremonial.
To end the day we met with our pilgrim friends for dinner at a medieval restaurant. It was really nice to share a meal with the Virginians: LeeRay and AnneMarie, the Dutch, Rudy and Kirsten, and our Swede Annie. Since we all walk at different speeds and with different schedule we don't know if we will see them again but for sure we'll be friends for a long time to come.
Tomorrow: Fatima!! I am so looking forward to visit our lady at her shrine. She really has been a mother for me and I have received her protection many a time. Hail Mary full of grace.
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