Tomar -oh

July 2 2011
Train from Lisbon to Tomar. Coppertone had found this city months ago on the internet, intrigued by the Festa Tabuleroise, that is held every 4 years, when virgin maidens carry trays of bread and flowers around the town. Over the last century it has morphed into a week long festival, with the maidens carrying towers of bread and flowers in baskets on their heads, each tray weighing 15 Kg, about 3 ft high, and all individually decorated. They go about 5Km thru and around the town, about 700 maidens, with multiple marching bands to help. They ran out of maidens so now it is any woman who thinks she can do it.And it is obviously a physical feat. As we walked from the train station to our pensao we saw a young woman in jeans and a tank top, carrying one of these trays, training for the event which was actually a week away. Though each woman is accompanied by a man to help her if it starts to tip, it is considered bad form to let it fall or give up.
Tomar is a lovely small town, northeast of Lisbon, easy negotiate on foot. We climbed the very steep stairs to our room ( without anything on our head), dropped off our packs then found a little cafe for lunch. We ordered codfish cakes and sausage, and oddly, when they arrived we weren´t clear which was which. They were great,with some kind of potato mixed in, not like anything we had before. Tomar had set up speakers through the city and a DJ somewhere was playing constant music. We were walking around to `Built this city on Rock and Roll` which was in sharp contrast to the ancient Knights of Templar Convent that dominates the hill over the plaza. Or maybe not. We climbed up to it for a guitar concert but got lost in the multiple cloisters and didn´t find our way out until the concert doors were closed. Think it was held in the dungeon. That was OK, we sat on the highest parapet and read about the Knights of Templar and the magnificant stone work we were viewing in the sunset. The main chapel was built in a circular form so the knights could celebrate mass while on horseback.Later we walked back down to the city park for a folk dancing presentation, oddly lit only from behind, but with a sound system that you could hear everywhere in the town. While enjoying a sausage cooked in bread over wood fire brick oven at the park, we met a woman who was going to be in the procession next Saturday. She was 65 years old and had been wanting to do this all her life. Note: the town gave up on the virgin requirement a couple decades ago. Now they have 700 women dressed in white carrying the trays, and 500,000 people from Portugal there to watch. We would miss this, but on the morning of July 3rd, we were lined up with thousands to watch the kiddie version. Out of sight cute. Hundreds of little girls wearing long white dresses with red sashes, their hair and faces scrubbed to perfection, along side equally clean and determined young boys, helping them if the tray started to tip. These kids were from 6 to 10 yr old. The really little ones ( about 3 yr old and up ) just did the walk carrying baskets of flowers ( one still had her pacifier in her mouth). This went on for over an hour. Later you could see these kids all over the town, especially in the park where numerous games had been set up for them. They frolicked, oblivious to any damage to their white attire. After all, when this Festa happens again in 2015, they will have long outgrown the ceremonial dress.
We also toured the `´Fosforus`` Museum, where some guy had collected 40,000 match book covers from all over the world. Don´t know if he was a smoker. And went thru a tiny synagogue, I think the oldest in Portugal.After having a wonderful lunch of rissoto cod and sausages, we opted for a simple dinner which turned out to be churrousco (sic), which is like Indian fry bread, stuffed with Nutella.And snacked on what we thought were salted fava beans,or maybe hominey or ?? but really good.
In between all this we searched out places to watch snippets of the Tour D France, routing for Garmin and Tyler Farrar.

Another night in Tomar, then walked to the train station to head north to Porto.

Random thoughts;
Anything can be a street, so you have to watch for cars, even if there is clearly no room or access for them.
That said, there is relatively scant traffic in the cities, including Lisbon, and rare motorcycles and bikes. Very peaceful .
There also seems to be few dogs and fewer smokers. Am I really in Europe ?
Window shopping I can see that clothes\shoes are high quality and dirt cheap. Since I am travelling with a small backpack, if I buy something, another item must be tossed.
They have these amazing gel filled plastic packs that are taken from the freezer and wrapped around the vino verde at the table. Very effective. Will bring some home.
Figs and pastries and cashews and great coffee and caldo verde.
We alternate between bad spanish and french, and worse portuguese, and whatever english they understand. And it all works.
If you ignore the Euro\dollar exchange rate, this is a very reasonable place to vacation.
Don´t go to Portugal unless you crave walking up and down steep hills. We earn our right to the pastries.
signed, Coppertone ( not as approved for publication by Solarcaine)