We had a nice relaxing day by the beach to recoup, it was time for a daytrip to go check out a nearby town. Tomar was about an hour's drive, but was it ever worth it! It's the original place where the Knight's Templar was founded. It's got quite the religious connotation, of course, but could we have been any more lucky? We arrive in the old town square to grab some coffee and pastries to see all these fancy cars starting to arrive and pull up into the square right onto the curb. Turns out it was some sort of car festival and Justin could barely keep his jaw off the floor at some of the relics that showed up. Again, not sure what's going on with the photos once uploaded here, but the fact that they refuse to cooperate, I can't be bothered to photoshop the cranes out. So just focus on what matters here.
Car show aside, Tomar is a beautiful town; both the inner city, the surrounding perimeter, and the view with the Knight's Templar castle up on the hill.
Go figure that the park we walk into has a car rally gong show going on, too. I took a break to feed Babes while Justin went to salivate some more and investigate the event. We had actually just missed it and this explained the crazy tire marks in dirt roads we saw coming here. We actually walked in to the the trophy ceremony in the actual castle later on.
We made our way up the hill and to the castle and monastery.
On the way out of Tomar, we stopped by more aquaducts. These ones stood out from the rest because there were two paths that crossed as well as the fact that they were 22km long through the mountains. Just take a moment and consider that these were built by Ancient Romans... for 22km... in order to get water to the city. So surreal. Especially when standing under, beside, or on them, the magnitude and significance of them is breathtaking.
We finally had enough of the aquaducts and headed back to Nazare in time for dinner and to capture the sunset off the big cliff. Something to note about Nazare: The view we have from our window was super calming, however, there is an underground canyon on the other side of that cliff which causes enormous waves and this beach holds the world record for biggest wave surfed as recently as last year at 118m. There was a storm a brewing when we got there so we didn't stick around too long. Babes and I hung out in the car, just captured some photos and we drove back to the apartment. But not before we also saw a random moose surfer statue with which we obviously had to take a photo.
The sheer speed of the waves increasing was unreal. When we first got there, there almost weren't any, but with every one that hit the shore, it was significantly bigger and bigger. It was actually quite amazing to watch.