Tomar was where we first arrived as a family in Portugal. It was in the late summer of 2017, when the country’s most lethal fires were raging in the visible distance and warm, drippy figs hung precariously on an overburdened tree in the garden of our first house-sit. Certainly, best of times and worst of times stuff, where the thin line between excitement and fear was often hard to distinguish.
Stationed on the outskirts of town, our memories of forays into the first Portuguese city we got to know intimately are fond, fun-filled and now fittingly fabled. Tomar is a magical place, thoroughly enjoyable and instantly engaging in this day and age, as well as boasting a mythical past that seeps out of its architectural pores and is evident in just about every shop window that’s proud with Templar insignia.
Dominating the city’s main, chequerboard square is the imposing statue of Gauldim Pais, Portuguese Crusader, friend of King Afonso Henriques, and founding father of Templar Tomar, without whose influence this city would have turned out to be a very different place, sat as it is on the River Nabão in Central Portugal.
We have fond memories and instagram’d images of our children running across this picturesque and peaceful praça, sending pigeons into the dusky sky of a warm September evening, none of us understanding the importance of this memorialised legend at the time or historical significance of this location.
Fast-forward to last year, and it’s here where our latest ‘An Englishman and An Irishman Explore Portugal’ film captures its opening images. It’s here where we decide to take a tuk-tuk up to the magnificent Convent of Christ up the hill, and look forward to meeting two modern-day Templars, who curiously have settled in the area, having moved from Birmingham in the UK.
Where Lisbon is the de facto capital (though as I recall not officially so, with others holding on to the claim from many years before) and Coimbra the ‘academic capital’ with one of the oldest universities in Europe, I put it to you that Tomar is Portugal’s ‘spiritual capital’. And I am not alone in my thought process and suspicion.
Our tuk-tuk driver, the superbly helpful and knowledgeable Luís Campos of Tuk Lovers in Tomar seems to agree. And in telling us more about the spiritual significance of Master Pais, the Templars and the town, he recalled how Italian writer Umberto Eco felt the same way, even describing the city as the ‘belly-button’ of the world. By this, some assume he was referring to its seminal position in European history. Although to me, I suspect he was suggesting that Tomar was an energy centre, a ‘global chakra’ if you like, that shook the novelist, philosopher and cultural critic who “left Portugal and Tomar with the mind on fire”.
Tomar’s Convento de Cristo, the Templar’s 12th-century stronghold, now an official UNESCO World Heritage site, which took decades to build, is a stunning and stirring thing, where we could have stayed all day, enjoying its majesty and mystery.
The show had to go on however, and next on our itinerary was a lunch date back in the city centre, at the iconic Café Paraíso, with the two Brummie knights: The Great Garvo and Chinese Terry, whose curious names remain a mystery as obscure as any enigmatic Templar myth.
Not unsurprisingly, the spirituality of Tomar was called to the conversational fore, as Garvo revealed how the move from his urban roots to Portugal’s rural splendour at the age of 55 “developed a part of me that’s been wanting for such a long time, you know, the spiritual part of me”.
“I can walk out into Oak Forest within a few minutes from where I live; it’s beautiful. I can be bathed in warm sunlight, and so much history, culture, religion, spirituality. If you look at the Templar symbols, it’s all there, and it’s special,” says Garvo who acknowledged that being in Portugal and in the countryside around Tomar had birthed his “spiritual side”, somewhat late in life, after the busyness of work and raising a family.
Lisbon-born philosopher and historian Paulo Loução also believes Tomar to be the spiritual capital of the country, saying “the Knights Templar and the Order of Christ played a major role in the Portuguese History from the 13th to the 16th century, namely in the foundation of the nation and during the Portuguese Discoveries”, as reported by the Centro de Portugal tourist resource.
Quite partial to a touch of cosmic consciousness, I can’t help believing that my wife, myself and our children were drawn or guided towards Tomar. I don’t subscribe to the prosaic simplicity of coincidence, and lean into the idea that everything happens for a reason.
It’s no accident that a 15th century synagogue can also be found in the city, that our son was born not far away from this energetic epicentre, and that we have made some very special friends in this area, who have blessed our lives so profoundly, including the reincarnated Templar knights you see in the video.
Thinking back to our arrival in this special place, I remembered a day when we were new to the area and enjoying an idyllic moment at one of the area’s reservoir beaches. The proprietor of the beach bar drew us in close and began to speak of an occult secret, unique to Tomar, that could be known with the right set of clues and actions. He spoke of a church, a way we should stand before it, and a direction for our view, which – if the circumstances were aligned and auspicious – would be revelationary to us, the wide-eyed and eager newcomers.
Despite our best efforts and diligent efforts to have the secret made clear to us in the autumn of 2017, it would take another six years for the Tomarian, Templarian ‘a-ha moment’ to bless our lives. But it would, of course, be wrong to reveal that esoteric knowledge to you, here and now, that was finally grasped in Templar company over this delightful weekend of fun and filming.
Should you wish to avail yourself and perhaps birth or develop your subtler side, you must make your own pilgrimage to Portugal’s spiritual capital and ask the locals, who might, if the ghost of Gauldim should feel it favourable, open your eyes to the pride, to the outstanding feature of Tomar that not all can immediately see or instantly feel. And who knows, you too might fall under the spell of Templar Tomar and end up contemplating your own navel, in the world’s belly-button, just as we did.
Watch below Carl’s latest ‘An Englishman and An Irishman Explore Portugal’ film for clues about the Templar teaser and to learn more about Tomar
Carl Munson is host of the Good Morning Portugal! show every weekday on YouTube and creator of www.learnaboutportugal.com, where you can learn something new about Portugal every day!
