Our next port of call was Batalha about 60 kilometres away. We had only just at this point worked out the automatic toll system on the motorways. This is a typically over complicated Portuguese thing and is difficult enough to work out if you are driving a car with Portuguese plates (which we were) the only option for foreign plated cars was pre-payment cards which would normally mean you leaving the country having overpaid. In our case our car was fitted with a transponder which would debit a credit card automatically, in the case of the A13 this would mean every few kilometres. Our transponder was deactivated, we didn't want to pay 1.95 euros a day for the privilege of paying tolls.
We elected to pay at the Post office, this caused us a bit of a kerfuffle as the day after my birthday is All Saints day, a national holiday in Portugal. so it actually took nearly four days before we came up on the computerised system ( it recognises number plates ) and after Five days the fine is ten times the tolls. I spent a little time after this telling figuring out how to get Google maps on my Iphone to avoid toll roads.
It actually worked quite well as the IC roads to Batalha were great and we saw more of the country.
Our accommodation at Batalha was the Refugio ti Maria a self contained little house Lynne had chosen because of the name.
It was a lovely spot and very quiet, it had a huge back courtyard and outbuildings that even included a bread oven.
It was possible to sit out and dine or just rock in the rocking chairs. The bread oven is in the corner
We were safely locked up behind big steel gates and were a little overwhelmed by the space after living on a 35 foot boat! The heating was by a pot bellied wood burning stove which turned out to be quite smoky, luckily the weather had turned sunny again so it wasn't too much of a problem...
The plan was to use this as our base for the next three days and explore the surrounding towns of Batalha, Tomar and Fatima.
As it was furthest away I suggested we start with the old Templar town of Tomar.
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