Tom`s travels: Leiria (06/02/15)

I took a blablacar with a cool guy called Eduardo at 7:20 and reached Leiria 1 hour later after talking a lot about travels around Portugal and him telling me about his time in Marocco. He then dropped me in the city center and went to work, Since it was still quite early and the tourist office was still closed I decided to head to the Cathedral fist. The weather was good and clear, but it was much colder than Coimbra,with only 2 degrees. The Cathedral, built in the Mannerist style in the 16th century, is very big and nice white an empty but imposing interior, sitting right below the castle's hill. It is probably the only cathedral in Portugal with a detached bell tower, that is 200 meters uphill. After that, I started walking towards the other side of town, while the sun had started to shine, to see the Santuario Nossa Senhora da Encarnação that sits on a high hill on the southern side of town. After passing by the Igreja de Santo Agostinho with a strangely blue colored cloister, I climbed up the monumental stairs leading to the sanctuary along what seemed a small via crucis or stations of the cross, and reached the top. After a nice view of the town of Leiria from the top of the hill, I headed back down and went inside another church which was open, before heading to the tourist office. There I got a map and finally headed uphill towards the castle; bu first I did a detour to see the Igreja de São Francisco though it was unfortunately closed. Once I reached the top of the hill, I passed by the interesting but small church of São Pedro, and then headed for the castle entrance. I bought the ticket and started walking around; passing through a small gate I reached a ruined church with no roof and interesting Manueline features. Then I reached the part where the inhabited Palace stood, with a beautiful windowed terrace looking over the old town. Below the ground floor stood a small museum with archaeological findings of the region and some photos of the castle before and after the restoration it underwent. It then started to rain so I ran out and into the castle's keep, located on the highest point of the hill, I climbed the stairs to the top and slowly the sun started to shine again. From up there the view was great, both over the old town on one side, and the football stadium on the other. After visiting the castle, I headed back down into town and walked through the streets for a while, as I usually do I decided to try the local sweet; however I was not able to find one and found only a kiosk that sold the Madeira sweet which was very good. It was 2pm and I had pretty much seen all the town so I decided to get the first bus and head back home in Coimbra.