From Lisbon to Braga or Lifting the Curse of Brussels Airlines

    If you look at the road map of Portugal, you will notice a rather high density of roads. No, of course, it is far from the web of roads in Western Europe, but, in any case, Portugal is very attractive for car tourism.
  The main roads that cut the country up and down, high-speed and mostly toll, have an index starting with the letter A: A1, A2, A3, etc. The exception is the A22 expressway running along the south coast in the Algarve province, which is free.
Along with express roads, there are many ordinary roads, which for the most part duplicate the first ones. By the way, we paid attention to such a remarkable fact: if there are no parallel ordinary roads on any section of a toll highway, then on this section such a road becomes free. Thus, there is always a choice: if time is important and there is money, we choose the expressway; if we want to see the surrounding beauty or if we don’t have money, we move along ordinary roads. However, the quality of all roads is quite high, in any case, we have not seen broken roads.
  The cost of travel on toll roads in absolute terms does not exceed 1 € per 10 km. However, you need to be careful at the payment points. Once, we foolishly had to pay 20 € for each car for a few kilometers. There are two typical mistakes that drivers make when driving on toll roads. By the way, this happens not only in Portugal.
  The first error is the absence of a payment coupon. When entering a toll section of the road, you either need to pay a fixed amount, or, most often, take a payment coupon, which records the place and time of entry to the toll section. Usually you need to press a green or red button, a ticket crawls out of the device that you need to take with you, the barrier automatically opens and you can go further. The error is provoked by the fact that the barrier is sometimes already open and an inattentive or inexperienced driver passes without taking a ticket. And at the next nearest payment point, such an amateur freebie driver (free or involuntary) is charged the maximum amount or even a decent fine.
  The second mistake is to try to pay in cash where payment is made by subscription cards or automatically if you have the appropriate device in your car. Such payment points are marked with the letter V on a green background (Via Verde). At the entrance to the payment points, you should pay attention to the signs and markings. Then you can choose the appropriate payment method in advance. But if nevertheless you are in the wrong place, in no case do not try, using the reverse gear, to change lanes to another passage. Such a maneuver is regarded as creating an emergency and is punishable by a fine of at least 100 €.
  The speed limit on the roads (50 km/h in built-up areas, 90 km/h on a normal road, 120 km/h on an express road) is generally respected. Of course, there are local scorchers who drive 150 and above, but they are at home and probably know and can do things that we are not given.
  What surprised us, at least on toll roads, is the very low number of cars on the roads. Moreover, the traffic on the roads decreased more and more, the farther north from Lisbon we drove. There were sections where we rode alone for a long time. And this is during the day and it doesn’t matter if it’s a weekday or a weekend. We made the assumption that the people do not live well and cannot afford to ride on toll roads, if you can ride for free. We were pushed to this by the fact that if we saw passing or oncoming cars, then these were prestigious Mercedes and all sorts of BMWs.
  Road markings and signs are clear and easy to read, and with a GPS navigator, they create very comfortable conditions for auto travel.
  But back to our ..., i.e. travel.
  So, we are on the way to the first point of today's program - Alcobaza. But we were not destined to go there. It can be seen that the curse of Brussels Airlines is still in effect, and we unanimously skip the necessary exit from the toll road, but they did not want to do a 20-km loop with a return. We decided to move on - to the easily pronounced Batalha.
  Batalha, along with Alcobaza, Fatima and Tomar, are must-sees. Here are monasteries built in the Middle Ages, which today are a place of pilgrimage.
  People come to Batalho to see the monastery of Santa Maria de Vitoria (Convento Santa Maria da Vitoria), which was built during the reign of the Portuguese king João I in honor of the victory of the Portuguese over the Spaniards in 1385 (Batalha translated from Portuguese means battle, battle).
  Here I will not dwell on a detailed description of this masterpiece of Manueline - a truly Portuguese variety of late ("flaming") Gothic. It's worth seeing with your own eyes.