Tomar and Castelo de Vide

 Our tour this morning started with a visit to the hilltop Convent of Christ (the Convent is surrounded by the walls of the Castle of Tomar).  The "Military Order of Christ" was established in 1318 (but the Knights Templar existed outside of Portugal prior), and those in the order were known as the "Knights Templar". This UNESCO site has some fascinating information on the convent, and as we all know, the Knights Templar have a very interesting (and I would also argue confusing as well) history. We were told that King John III changed the order to be a more traditional religious order (in the 1500s). The order was secularized in 1789, all religious orders were forced out of Portugal in 1834, and dissolved in 1910, when the monarchy ended. It was revived in 1917, as an Order of Merit, headed by the President of Portugal, as a decoration in recognition of outstanding services to the state.

Henriquinos (Prince Henry the Navigator), was part of the order (before he had to ascend the throne, and thereby marry to have legitimate heirs) and settled in Tomar.  In the first half of the 15th century he ordered a Gothic nave added to the church, and with it came the frescoes.

The main cloister (they had 8 over their history) was constructed by order of King John III in 1557, and is one of the best examples of Renaissance architecture in Portugal.

From Tomar we headed south, across the Tagus river, for a stop in the town of Castelo de Vide.  It is located in the Alentejo (pronounced All-N-tay-jo) region, which is known for its unique cultural traditions. 

The Jewish quarters there is one of the best preserved in Portugal and is an example of the Jews' presence in Portugal dating back to the 13th century.  The synagogue from that time is now a museum, and if Nélia hadn't pointed it out we would have missed it.  I believe she told us that King Manuel was the only one who persecuted the Jews (but they simply hid in plain sight and took in refugees from other areas).  Overall it was a lovely town with lots of steep cobblestone alleys.

  

We had a few hours there to grab some lunch, but I mostly wandered around before settling on a shaded bench in the town square to eat my pear.  One of my tour-mates works for the Australian government in the U.S. so I enjoyed talking to her about our shared interest in that country.

Our next drive took us through beautiful fields with old cork trees and wild lavender - I wish we would have been able to stop so I could get a picture.  Anyway, our drive ended at a cork processing warehouse in Azaruja (at a company called Cortiçarte).  I found this stop to be incredibly fascinating, who knew cork was so interesting?  Our tour guide was excellent and had us all laughing with his deadpan humor.  Did you know that if you plant a cork tree it will take 40 years before you'll get any cork?  And did you know you can only harvest cork every 9 years after that or you'll kill the tree?  They can only remove the cork bark from May to July, so they have to obtain enough cork to last the rest of the year without closing their factory (they only have 7 employees and they need cork from 10,000 trees to have a year's worth of work).  Oh, and to complicate things even more, they can only extract bark from the bottom of the tree.  If they extract the bark too high the next batch of cork will becomes too thin and requires extra time for the tree to heal and regrow the next batch.

They dry the cork bark for two months, then they have to boil the cork (for 1 hour) before they can start to work with it.  You may be wondering why they would boil the cork, cork is waterproof after all.  The reason is that the temperature of the water changes the molecular structure of the cork so that it becomes flexible (and stays that way for about 2 weeks before it hardens again).  Side-effects of the boiling process is that the dirt sinks to the bottom and the bugs and bacteria that may have been in the bark die, and this flattens the cork (they they stack it on pallets to keep it that way).

They pull the cork bark off by hand/axe to this day, no machine is able to tell how deep to go yet without killing the tree.  The number one use for cork is for stoppers (wine, champagne, etc.), mostly because that's where the cork producers can make the most money.  The cork is all graded manually by the employees (they're taught to visually distinguish the grades of cork) and the poor quality, or leftover, cork is shredded for insulation or sound absorption.  They use cork to make furniture, fishing pole handles, shoes, clothes, purses, and more - it is incredibly versatile!