Mafra

This week our adventures took us about an hour northwest of Lisbon.

To Mafra.

"Mafra is a pretty little Portuguese town that contains one of Europe’s largest and most extravagant palaces, the Palacio de Mafra. This vast complex includes a huge monastery, an ornate basilica and a library that contains over 36,000 ancient books and its own colony of bats."

Actually, the palace is the main (and only) tourist attraction of Mafra.😐 This huge building completely dwarfs the rest of the town!

First stop - the Basilica.

 

The Pharmacy and Infirmary 

The palace was constructed between 1717 and 1755 and was used as both a convent and royal residence. Inside there are over 1,200 rooms connected by over 150 flights of stairs.

The Royal Residence was our next stop.

Then on to the amazing library.

 
Just like the library in Coimbra, there is a colony of bats which live in the library and protect the ancient books from insect damage.

These small bats are let out at night and can eat twice their weight in insects. This natural form of pest control has been in place for over 300 years!

And, finally, the gardens.

(There are larger gardens but the day was way too cold and windy to enjoy them.)

While waiting for the bus we couldn't pass up one of those sweet Portuguese treats!

We just needed a little 'tide-me-over' until we got back to Lisbon.

This is one of our favorite places to eat in Lisbon - Time Out Market. 
We're not the only ones who like it!!!

And one last thing. 

We just completed our first Portuguese puzzle. Actually, it came from Italy and it was extremely hard to put together. But we didn't give up. No way! No how! We did it!