For this trip, with my family, including wife, daughters, sons in law, grandchildren and step grandchildren, I changed my approach. Rather than be the trip planner and historian, I decided to attack the trip differently. I decided to do nothing. I didn’t pick the house we are staying in or its location, I haven’t picked a restaurant, I haven’t designed a single excursion, I am not driving a car, and I haven’t researched our surroundings. I am just going along for the ride.

It’s worked out okay. I was told that today, we were going to Tomar. I looked at it on the map – about 100 kilometers from here – and realized it would be a longish drive, and I was told there was an old synagogue there.

The trip from Foz da Arelho took a little more than hour. Pretty scenery, largely on fast highways. High hills or low mountains, farms and towns, a lot green, many flowers including the large pink and white oleander bushes that adorn the median strip on Highway A8, which runs from Lisbon to Porto. Two tunnels, several river crossings. Terra totally incognito to me.

Tamor was a surprise. There is an old town, which is very old and picturesque and, for the most part, well maintained. Easy to find your way, because the old town was basically a grid, with a central plaza at one end. Behind the plaza, a green hill/mountain with a castle at the top.

There are many restaurants and a large variety of shops – clothing, jewelry, children’s shops, and services. All quite nice and friendly.

And on a street primarily residential, there’s a synagogue. Not a big one, and not functioning as a synagogue, it is now a small, but appealing Jewish museum. It has been well restored, and is architecturally, just another town house on the block. It once encompassed the houses on either side, one now a private residence and the other where you view the remains of a mikveh through a large glass window. There is a pleasant guide, happy to answer your questions. She apparently belongs to one of the two Jewish families in Tomar today.

But back in the day (it’s a fifteenth century synagogue), Jews made between 30 and 40 percent of Tomar, and had been there a long time. They were formally expelled, along with all the Jews in Portugal in 1496. But if they didn’t leave, as I recall my history, no big deal. They were willingly or not baptized en masse, whether or not they were present at the baptism ceremony. Much more thoughtful than what happened four years earlier in neighboring Spain.

Tomar was also a headquarters of the Portuguese Templars, a Catholic order (but much more) I have read about quite a bit. Wikipedia says that many Jews worked for the Templar organization in Tomar. I certainly can see that happening.

In the early 14th century, the Pope (under the influence of the king of France) decided that the Templars were too big and too wealthy and were rivalling the Vatican, so he ordered all Templar institutions shut down and turned over to the Church. In some places (in fact in most places) Templar leaders were rounded up and killed. But in Portugal, as a precursor to what happened to the Jews 150 years later, the Templar buildings were not stolen and given to the Vatican. Instead, one morning the Templars woke up, learned they were now members of a new Order of Christ, and life contued as normal, not only in Tomar but all through Portugal.

By the way, this synagogue is one of only two pre-expulsion synagogues in Portugal. And there are only four or five in Spain.

We had lunch in Tomar at an Italian restaurant called La Bella. Much too much food for lunch but, gee, that’s what this family does. I had “gorgonzola ravioli” which was delicious. I are about half, which was more than I needed. And I ate less, I am sure, than anyone else. So this evening, at a restaurant down by the beach near us, Restaurante Europa, I only ordered an omelet because I was still full. But they served it with good french fries, so once again I ate too much. And, by the way, tragedy did strike at the Europa. Ever been attacked by catsup? Let me tell you – it’s no fun.