Still.

I feel bereft.

This weekend we went to Tomar, which was very nice. It's in an area of Portugal called the Ribatejo, which is basically the area along the river Tejo, or Tagus if you're inclined toward English.

Dick and Jane texted me at 1:00 am Saturday morning to see if we wanted to go. Ironically, we had already rented a car for the weekend, and had decided to go to Tomar after canvassing all my friends. I didn't even get the message until Saturday morning, while I was waiting on the doctor at the gym and I checked my phone for something to do. It gets very loud at the pub late on a Friday, and I never even heard my phone when they sent it. We would have left Cascais already, except that we had a birthday party to go to on Friday, and I had the doctor's appointment on Saturday morning. They've passed a new law in Portugal, requiring medical certificates so that the gym isn't liable if one of their patrons has a heart attack, or passes out and hits their head on a dumbbell.

I passed, by the way. In fact, he was most impressed with my blood pressure. He actually said, "You must work out all the time." I mention this because I drink, smoke, get very little sleep and eat fatty foods. Actually, I do watch what I eat, but not with a gimlet eye that would require me to abandon cheese, for example, or chocolate.

So I talked to Jane, and they called Miss Kitty, and we arranged to meet the three of them there. Which worked out well for us, as we were able to take our time getting ready and on the road, secure in the knowledge that there would be a room waiting for us when we got there.

They did a fine job on the Pensão. It was fabulous, full of antiques, on a pedestrianized street with parking close by, full of antiques, en suite bathroom, and all for the bargain price of 32 Euros, including breakfast. Well, breakfast was crap, but you can't have everything.

Tomar is famous for being the home of the Templars in Portugal. And the Portuguese crown found the Templars very useful-- so much so that after Dom Denis suppressed them in Portugal in 1314, by order of the Pope (who had finally realized just how powerful, unaccountable, and extremely wealthy the Order had become), he founded the Order of Christ a short time after, and gave it all the money and land seized from the Templars. In fact, the whole area was Templar country from the early 1100s until 1834, when almost all religious orders were extinguished, although the Templars (or Order of Christ at that point) had been in decline since the end of the sixteenth century. In their heyday, however, they were an integral part of Portugal's "Discoveries" and colonization, especially under Henry the Navigator, who was himself Grand Master of the Order of Christ.

In short, Tomar is Templar Central. There are Templar crosses carved into balconies, on lamp posts, painted on buildings, embedded in the sidewalk. There are Templar bars, hotels, car dealerships, book stores, pastry shops. Templar topiary. The Templarmart.

The Hotel Dos Templarios is a vast, modern hotel and convention center in Tomar, which is pretty much in the middle of nowhere. It exists mainly to cater to large groups: convention attendees and busloads of tourists on their way to Fatima. We went there for a drink, as our dinner reservations weren't until 8 and the bars don't open until 10:30 or so. I would have been happy in one of the cafes or small local bars, but Dick and Jane wanted to go have a drink in the hotel bar. As hotel bars go, it wasn't as extortionate as I expected. This hotel could have been anywhere: Milan, Dallas, Frankfurt, somewhere in Utah. Apparently, Dick and Jane find that kind of anonymity comforting. I find it boring. The hotel's one distinctive feature was the huge light fixture in the main lobby. Instead of the usual chandelier, there was a thick, black, metal hoop with Templar crosses carved around its perimeter. I wonder if they make it in a smaller size. Oh, and they had their own wine-- Vinho Dos Templarios-- which wasn't bad at all, and cheap to boot.

On Sunday, we went up to the Convento de Christo, which is a cross between a monastary and a castle. Perched on the steep hill overlooking the town, it is where the Templars lived. It's especially pretty at night, when it's all lit up, but it was pretty cool during the day. The place is huge. They started building it in the 1100s, and kept on adding to it in a variety of architectural styles for the next four hundred years.

We spent hours touring the thing, although it would have been less had it not been a Sunday and the bookshop, therefore, closed. As it was, without a proper guidebook we had no idea what we were looking at, for the most part. I especially liked the arrow slits, which were shaped like Templar crosses.

Bedtime. Elvis has to get up obscenely early tomorrow, and since I always get up with him, I do too.