Hola todos,
We woke up pretty early to check out of our Airbnb and get an Uber to the train station. (The Uber was super cheap! Only about €5 or $5 for something that would have cost $10-$15 in DC, at least.) We got onto our first train easy enough and started our Portuguese transportation adventure.
As a side note, I strongly recommend traveling new countries by bus or train, at least in part. What you learn firsthand about rural life, the countryside, and the nature of a country or region is unmatched. And you don’t have to stress about driving!
We had a total of three trains that we took to get to Tomar. I will note that we had to pre-book the train tickets and got a discount for booking them far in advance. However, the tickets for most trains were sold out a few days before our trip.
The Train Path from Porto to Pombal
We had a short wait in the small town of Pombal after the first train. I walked about three minutes from the train station to find a cute little café. Between my guesses at Portuguese words based on Spanish and their poor English, I bought some pastries and coffee. They didn’t accept card, though, so they had to give me directions (in Portuguese, of course) to an ATM in the center square… where I ran, got cash, and came back. This is one of the fun experiences you can only have in small town travel! The women running the cafe were so kind and patient.
Then we got on a short train to Lamarosa, where we had an hour and a half wait. The other girls wanted to get breakfast somewhere nearby, so we walked around a bit, trying to find a grocery store, corner bodega, or cafe.
To understand what this adventure was like, I have to explain to you what the town of Lamarosa is like. There seem to be a bunch of houses, but we saw very few people. There was only one small corner grocery store that could hardly support a large population. The center of the town’s center of commerce had one open café, one closed café, and one small corner store. Granted, it was Saturday morning. But still!
We saw probably about 15 people walking around, and this is clearly a small town where everybody knows everybody.
But we walked about 5 minutes in the wrong direction from the city center because there wasn’t great signage coming out of the train station. A nice woman was coming out of her house and I asked her how to get to a café. She was just getting into her car, and she offered us a ride. So, we ended up riding with her about a kilometer or so into the city center. She pointed out the open café, the open grocery store, and the town church. She also said hi to pretty much everybody. Her name is Ana, and she had just moved back to Lamarosa from Switzerland, where she had been working for 10 years. She moved back to Lamarosa during Covid so that she and her two small children could live closer to her parents.
Ana!
Briefly, I want to interject that I don’t recommend getting in cars with strangers, especially in a place where you don’t speak the language. But, there were four of us, she was a woman, she was alone, and I got good (not psycho) vibes.
We went to the grocery store, which pretty much had nothing that we were looking for in terms of breakfast. I bought some fresh baked bread rolls, though. Then we walked about a block to the local café, which also had no breakfast items either. They also only had espresso shots, so that’s what we got! We sat and drink our espresso for a few minutes, and ate the bread rolls.
Then we walked back down to the train station. We waited for probably another 20 or 30 minutes before our train came. The small town kindness of Ana was just another example of the adventuring that you can only get when you go to a tiny town that’s not used to foreigners and where very few people speak English.
Tomar
When we got to Tomar, we went to a hotel across the street from the train station to check our bags for the day. We’d heard that a hotel in the area did that, so we figured we’d give it a try so we didn’t have to lug our bags around all day. The hotel was Hotel Trovador and the workers behind the desk were so kind! They don’t have an official policy, but they placed our bags in a closet for the afternoon. (They didn’t charge, but we tipped.)
Then we walked into town in search of lunch. We stopped at a cute local cafe called Legenda Medieval.
The employees didn’t speak English, but a local woman who was a customer kind of did, so we successfully ordered lunch with an English menu and some gesturing. Then, it was off to the main attraction!
Convento de Cristo
I expected to spend like an hour and a half here and then be done. But we actually spent about 3 hours touring, and it was totally worth the time (and the €6 entrance fee). It used to be a primary stronghold of the Knights Templar, and then was turned into a convent. It was built in the twelfth century and then renovated and added to throughout the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries.
It’s massive. It’s beautiful. Pictures can’t do it justice. We kept walking into new rooms and courtyards that were “*gasp* Wow!” worthy.
This is a great day trip from Lisbon, or a good “traveling from/to Lisbon from/to Porto” trip. I was a bit skeptical, to be honest, but the town is so cute and the convent is amazing.
To Lisbon!
We walked around Tomar a bit more before getting some savory pastries to go and catching our train to Lisbon.
We got into Lisbon and again took an Uber to our Airbnb. (We were going to metro, I promise! But it was faster than the metro and we were trying to avoid a late check-in fee. And then we found out it was €5. No brainer!)
We met our host and she toured us around the flat. It’s a fifth-story apartment, and we have the whole unit. We’re in a fun, chic neighborhood, and I can’t wait to explore it more.
There was also an in-unit washer! We *really* needed to do laundry, so we did a quick load and then got settled in for the night.
Step tracker: 117,238
Besos,
Tina the ExploraDora
What a gorgeous cathedral.
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