(Italy/Portugal)...I have never felt much moved to adopt religion, but I have always enjoyed visiting religious sites. Not churches, cathedrals, temples, etc. per se (in fact, I’ve become a little immune to such sights now, in the same way that I rarely want to visit large city museums) but more rather ruined monasteries and castles established by strange religious orders. Luckily, there are many of these, be they established by the Saracens, the Knights Templar, the Rosicrucians, the Jesuits, even the Christadelphians, a group that believes the literal word of the Bible.
There was a small church of theirs, nothing less than someone’s house, around the road from where I grew up in northwest Kent, and I always considered it slightly scary. This most probably was because it was not normal, in that it was not the “normal” church, not the “normal” thing people did and not the “normal “ thing people believed in or would talk about. Tomar is a large town on the banks of the small River Nabão in central Portugal. Here there is a large, impressive Knights Templar castle based on the Temple of the Dome of the Rock of Jerusalem. Perched high on the hill overlooking the whole plain, the castle was constructed in 1160 by Gualdim Pais, grand master of the Order of the Knights Templar.
When Philip the Fair of France sponsored a papal bull outlawing the Templars, many of the order hastily fled to the extremities of Europe, including the British Isles and Portugal. The Tomar castle served as one of their retreats, although this branch was dissolved seven years later following another bull from Pope Clement V. Then, as now, the real reason for such a move was money. In Portugal, the Ordo de Cristo replaced the order.
The Portuguese king Dom Dinis championed the new group, and Henry the Navigator was for some time the head of it. The sails of the Portuguese ships of discovery that reached India and the Far East displayed a red cross against a white background — the emblem of both the Knights Templar and, perhaps not coincidentally, the flag of England. The Ordo de Cristo declined in the 16th century and was abolished altogether in 1834.
It was a well-kept ruin when I visited and enjoyed its main cloister, which hosted the 1581 coronation of Philip II of Spain, who succeeded to the Portuguese throne following the death of the Portuguese king Sebastiano I. The walk that leads around the hill to the castle gives an impressive sense of the castle's isolation and power, its courtyard displaying pale raked sand, artistically arranged flowerbeds and wonderfully designed metal contraptions for tying horses to. Immediately inside the main door is a high 16-sided altar, where it was alleged the Templars celebrated mass on horseback. A short car journey from Tomar is the famous pilgrimage site of Fátima, where three children, Lucia dos Santos and her cousins Francisco and Jacinta Marco, saw an apparition of the Virgin Mary on May 13, 1917, whilst tending sheep. The area is actually named after a 12th-century Moorish princess and was sacred to the Islamic people who at one time inhabited this area. Now all the site is concrete and tacky souvenir stands.
Tomar and Fátima could not be any different if they tried. I also enjoyed Assisi in Italy. I had stayed in Perugia overnight and caught a very early train after walking downhill from Perugia’s centre to its lonely station. Assisi also has a station a long way from town. Famous for being the home of St. Francis, the town retains a feeling of tranquility, most visitors staying on the bottom level that leads to the cathedral rather than walking up its steep slopes.
My favourite religious site there — and it is merely a church, not ruined in any way — was the quiet church of San Stefano, a 13th century gem on a zigzag lane just off Via San Paolo. Apparently, when St. Francis died on October 3, 1226, its bells rang out despite the absence of bell-ringers. On any day one visits, the place will always nearly be empty of people. The old man in the photograph operated a very colourful street organ. People dropped pennies in a basket for him.