Ponte Velha & Water Wheel

First, we entered the old historic town of Tomar via its main bridge, Ponte Velha, located next to the Convent of Santa Iria. It is still today one of the main ways to access the beautiful old town streets, shops, cafes, restaurants and museums.

Before crossing the bridge, we stopped to view a wooden (probably Roman) water wheel located at the entrance to the Mauchão Park. The park itself offered cool shade under the willow trees by the river as we orientated ourselves. There was a medieval festa being prepared in the park, with stalls and period costumes on show but unfortunately we were not in Tomar long enough this time to enjoy the experience.

Eating out as a vegan in Portugal

I’ll just mention the resturant at this point. We ate an early lunch at the Rua Direita Restaurant. Being vegans, finding food in Portugal is often a challenge. I have to say though, and I did tell Paulina, this was probably the best vegan dish I have had so far in Portugal. What I loved about Rua Direita is that they offered a more traditional menu but with the meat products simply replaced with seitan or mushrooms (cogumelos) etc. It’s so easy to do and I’m always amazed that more restaurants don’t do it.

This was really tasty food. I enjoyed the vegan Empãdao de Alheira, traditionally a dish of pork sausage stuffing, vegatables and smoked paprika under a potato puré and topped with olives. Julie had Cogumelos à Bulhão Pato – normally a clam dish and Jackie (Julie’s mum) enjoyed a lovely, lovely, lovely salad with delicious batatas fritas. That’s her content face right there 🙂

Walking out of the old town

I had mentioned earlier that one of the main reasons to visit Tomar was to take in the World Heritage site of the Convento de Cristo. Following our lunch, we took a slow walk through some of the pretty back streets, narrow passages and alleyways. It was quiet and sultry. The early afternoon sun was now really burning and the air was dry. I love Portugal like this.

The old town buildings lining these streets, as in most old Portuguese towns and villages, are full of colourful architecture and deep textures.  In this heat you can’t just skip through, you have to shuffle along taking in all the authenticity.

There are many beautiful solid wood entrance doors along these streets. All with fine carved detailing and rich, polished furniture . It was a real busman’s holiday treat walking out of the old town!

Convento de Christo

On the outskirts of town, we’d reached Avenida Dr. Vieira Guimarães. This old cobbled road now takes you (on foot) to the top of the hill and the main entrance to the Convento de Christo.

Unfortunately for the present time, this is as far as we can go on our tour today – it was closed!

It was a real disappointment.

There is a lot of renovation work happening in Tomar at present. It’s understandable. The country, as in the rest of the world, is only just coming out of lockdown rules and businesses, attractions etc. are all working hard to bring themselves up to operational standards again. It’s very early in the season too so I guess we can put this one down to bad planning and bad timing.

We were unable to enter the grounds of the Convent de Christo and other churches in Tomar, so rather than get a few ‘cheap’ pictures from the outside, we plan to visit again and write up a more comprehensive account of the main attraction!

Here are just a couple of images showing the walk up. Great views of Tomar from here.

Slightly deflated, and very hot, we headed back down into Tomar old town for a cool glass of cerveja before heading back to collect the car with a view to visiting a famous aqueduct before we headed home.