Batalha and Fatima

As Ernie and I have been driving around this area the last few days, we've noticed a lot of walkers or hikers, I mean really a lot of them. In some areas one of the road lanes has been marked off for the walkers. We didn't know what it was all about but saw a telethon on TV and thought it might be related to that. Our waitress at lunch yesterday spoke very good English so we asked her about all the hikers and bikers. She said they were on pilmigrage to Fatima. This activity usually starts the beginning of April and lasts through October. It suddenly made sense!

So we left our beautiful B&B and headed into town for breakfast before taking off for sightseeing. While we were sitting in the square drinking our great coffee, a police car stopped in the road and blocked off traffic. We didn't see anything right away but definitely heard the folks. We hear all sorts of old fashioned bicycle horns, the kind with the big bulb you squeezed for the noise, and whistles. All of a sudden we saw the bicyclist comin down the road. Most were dressed in silly costumes, almost clown like, and others in normal dress. It went on for a while and at the end, two ambulances followed in case someone got hurt. Actually one biker did fall of his bike almost in front of us but picked himself up and got back on. I can't image riding a bike on cobblestone streets.

They rode to the front of the monastery, stopped for group picture, and then took off again with their police escort. Have no idea what that was all about but it definitely brought a smile to our faces. What a great way to start the day.

This monastery is a symbol of Portugal's national pride and built by King John I after winning the Battle of Aljubarrota. The Church of Our Lady of Victory (c. 1388 - 1550) is a fancy late Gothis structure decorated with lacy Gothic tracery - stained glass windows, gargoyles, railings, and flamboyant pinnacles representing the flickering flames of the Holy Spirit (thanks you Rick Steves for that commentary)!

What's interesting to note is that John I, born on 1357, began his rule in 1385. He established the House of Avis that would rule Portugal through the Golden Age (and eventually challenge the House of Hertz in the car-rental business! Again, thank you Rick Steves for that line). Johns descendants, through the Avis and Braganća lines, would rule Portugal until the last king in 1910.

My honey on the way back from the car

To give you a sense of the size if this place, that little speck in the bottom of the photo is Ernie

There was a small art display down this corridor. This is an artist take on a more modern gargoyle. If nothing, it is good for a laugh!

The story behind this ceiling in the Chapter Room is the it is a self-supporting star-vaulted ceiling that spans 60 feet, an engineering tour-de-force by Master Huguet, a foreigner who became chief architect I. 1402. The ceiling was considered so dangerous to build (it collapsed twice) that only prisoners Condemned to death were allowed to work on it. The architect supposedly silenced skeptics by personally spending the night in this room. It even survived the 1755 earthquake.

Portugal's Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

The photos below are of the unfinished chapels. This chapel behind the main altar was intended as an octagonal room with seven niches for tombs and topped with a rotunda. But only the walls, supporting pillars for the ceiling and a double tomb were completed.

On to Fatima, or so we thought! Took a wrong turn and wound up on this one lane road. Turned around and made our GPS happy as we were now going in the right direction.

Ernie and I learned about the miracle at Fatima when we were very young and in Catholic school.

On May 13, 1917, three children were tending sheep when the sky lit up and a woman, Mary, the mother of Christ, "a lady brighter than the sun" appeared standing in an oak tree. In the middle of World War I, she brought a message that peace was coming. The war raged on, so on the 13th day of each of the next five months, Mary dropped in again to call for peace and to repeat three messages. The three children, Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta were grilled mercilessly by authorities trying to debunk their versions, but the children remained convinced of what they'd seen.

Finally, on October 13, 70,000 people assembled near the oak tree. They were drenched I a rInstorm when suddenly the sun came out, grew blindingly light, danced around the sky,mthe. Plunged to the earth. When the crown came to its senses, the sun was shining and the rain had dried.

In1930 the Vatican recognized the Virgin of Fatima as legitimate. Today, tens of thousands of believers come to rejoice in this modern miracle. Many walk from as far away as Lisbon. These were the walkers wearing brightly colored vests that we saw walking the smaller highways on their way to Fatima.

The three messages that the children received were:

1) Peace is coming (World War I is ending)

2) Russia will reject God and communism will rise, bringing a second Great War

3) Someone will try to kill the pope. (This third message was kept a secret for decades, supposedly lying In a sealed envelope in the Vatican. In 1981, Pope John Paul II was shot. He visited Fatima I. 2000, meeting the surviving child, beautifying the two who had died, and publicly revealing the third secret.)

The old basilica is beautiful and it holds the tombs of the two children who had died in the flu epidemic that swept the world shortly after the visions. Lucia (the only one with whom Mary actually conversed) passed away at the age of 97 I. 2005. She lived as a Carmelite nun near Coimbra for most of her life.

We left the basilica and turned right to see where all the music and people were coming from. This is the sight we saw! The results of all the visitors and pilgrims. In the middle on the right side is the canopy covering the shrine to the Virgin of Fatima

The oak tree in the photo below is where she appeared to the children.

All the folks in this esplanade are either waiting to see the chapel and pray to the Virgin or light candles. If you look at the first photo of the canopy, notice the white walkway right of the center of the photo. This is the long smooth approach for pilgrims making their way to the Chapel of Apparitions on their knees.

One has to admire their faith!

So this brings us to our last full day at Alcobaća tomorrow. It will be a beach day at Nazare with a seafood supper in Sitio, a town above Nazare. We get to it by taking the funicular. I saw a lazy day since the beach is the activity but of course there is an old city that will need to be explored. But mainly the beach and our Kindles. Time to be beach bums since the weather has been in the mid 80s all this past week.

 

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