The Church of Santa Maria do Olival is a Roman Catholic church in the city of Tomar.

The church was built in the second half of the 12th century by the provincial master of the Order of the Knights Templar in Portugal, Gualdim Pais. It was used as a burial place for the Knights Templar of Tomar and, later, by the Knights of the Order of Christ, which succeeded the Templars in the 14th century. Gualdim Pais is buried in the church and his original tomb slab, dated from 1195 bearing a gothic inscription, is still preserved inside.

The current building is mostly the result of a reconstruction carried out in the 13th century in early Gothic style. The main façade has a beautiful rose window and a simple portal with several archivolts, and is flanked by a free-standing bell tower. The interior is very simple. The church has three naves covered by a wooden roof, and the columns of the pointed arches of the naves are devoid of capitals. The main chapel of the apse is covered by a Gothic ribbed vault. The tracery of the small rose window in the Eastern wall of the nave has the shape of apentagram.

In the 16th century the church was restored and several chapels were added to the Southern side. Notable are the polychromed statue of the Virgin Mary and Child (early 16th century) in the main altar and the funerary monument of Diogo Pinheiro the first Bishop of Funchal, a fine Renaissance work dated from 1525, located on the wall of the main chapel.

To understand Pena Palace and the beautiful Gardens sourrounding the Palace the tourist has to see the opera Parsifal…An opera with three acts by Richard Wagner. It is loosely based on Parzival by Wolfram von Eschenbach, a 13th century epic poem of the Arthurian knight Parzival (Percival) and his quest for the Holy Grail, and on Perceval, the Story of the Grail, by Chrétien de Troyes’.

Parsifal is one of King Arthur’s legendary Knights of the Round Table, which can be found  in the Pena Palace Gardens.

Wagner’s spelling of Parsifal instead of the Parzival he had used up to 1877 is informed by an erroneous etymology of the name Percival deriving it from a supposedly Arabic origin,Fal Parsi meaning “pure fool”. Playing with words…

Remember the most important it is not inside the Pena Palace but in the Gardens and the Castle of The Moors.

All starts with the Warrior in the Garden, D.Fernando put the it exacly in the place where he love to seat and paint.

The Warrior (or Parsifal or problably D.Fernando of Saxe Coburg-Gotha)

High Cross, Cruz Alta (or Excalibur with the sword inside the rock)

Pena Palace, The Castle of the Holy Grail

Chalet Condessa d’Edla, Pena Palace Gardens or Klingsor’s magic garden

Duck House, Klingsor’s magic garden

The Castle of The Moors (or Avalon)

Lawrence’s Hotel (the oldest hotel on the Iberian Peninsula)

Monserrate Palace

Seteais Palace Hotel

Vila Palace

Quinta da Regaleira

All Photos in this Post and Page were Courtesy from Bruno Nabiça.

The Perfect Tourist  eMagazine

In 1160 the building of the castle was started. The land (like many more around Southern Europe) was given by the Portuguese king to the Order of the Knights Templar, in return for their support against the Moors.

The convent was added later, as an extension to the castle. The Templar Order was dissolved in 1312 but their property in Portugal was transferred to the Order of Christ which was created in 1319. This new military order would undertake an important role in Portuguese overseas expansion in the 15th and 16th centuries.

Charola #1 Picture

Charola #2 Picture

Its octagonal church, called the Charola, is modeled on the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Eight tall, delicate pillars separate the central chapel from the outer aisle that encircles it. This unusual shape for a church was designed so that the knights could attend Mass on horseback – one of the many unique privileges this order enjoyed. Sharp-eyed visitors can still see the red cross of the Templars in the painted decoration of one of its pillars.

Quinta da Regaleira is an estate located near the historic center of Sintra,Portugal. It is classified as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO within the “Cultural Landscape of Sintra”. Along with other palaces in this area (such as the Pena, Monserrate and Seteais palaces), it is one of the main tourist attractions.

It consists of a romantic palace and chapel, and a luxurious park featuring lakes, grottoes, wells, benches, fountains, and a vast array of exquisite constructions. The palace is also known as “Palace of Monteiro the Millionaire”, from the nickname of its first owner, António Augusto Carvalho Monteiro. 

The land that is now Quinta da Regaleira had many owners through time. But in 1892 it belonged to the Barons of Regaleira, a rich merchants family from OPorto, when it was purchased that year byCarvalho Monteiro for 25,000 réis. Monteiro wished to build a bewildering place where he could gather symbols that would reflect his interests and ideologies. With the assistance of the Italian architect Luigi Manini, he designed the 4-hectare estate with its enigmatic buildings, believed to hide symbols related to alchemy, Masonry, the Knights Templar, and the Rosicrucians. The architecture of the estate evokes Roman, Gothic, Renaissance and Manueline architectural styles. The construction of the current estate commenced in 1904 and most of it was concluded by 1910.

The Regaleira Palace (Portuguese: Palácio da Regaleira) bears the same name as the whole estate. Sometimes, the name “Regaleira Palace” is used to refer to the entire estate.

The façade is characterized by exuberantly Gothic pinnacles, gargoyles, capitals, and an impressive octagonal tower.

The palace has five floors (a ground floor, three upper floors and a basement). The ground floor contains a series of hallways connecting the living room, dining room, billiards room, balcony, some smaller rooms and several stairways. In turn, the first upper floor contains bedrooms (Carvalho Monteiro’s bedroom used to be the one with a balcony) and a dressing room. The second upper floor contains Carvalho Monteiro’s office, and female servants’ bedrooms. The third upper floor contains the ironing room and a smaller room with access to a terrace. Finally, the basement contains the male servants’ bedrooms, the kitchen (which possessed an elevator for lifting food to the ground floor), and storage rooms.