We’ve been busy making our apartment home, which has been good timing since the days have been gloomy with some rain on and off. Today the forecast said there was a 0% chance of rain, so we decided that it was time to get out of the house.

Kyle has been seeing some pictures of what turned out to be the Batalha Monastery. I had never heard of Batalha, but it’s 15 minutes away from our apartment so we decided to check out the town and monastery.

Batalha is a small, very walkable town. The main area didn’t have any hills- a rarity in Portugal! The monastery is right in the middle of town and makes a beautiful backdrop. There is a park nearby with playgrounds, a river going through it, and a basketball court.

We didn’t go inside of the monastery because it has a sign outside that says to be quiet inside. Sofia and Leo are not into being quiet right now, so we’ll have to go back some time without them to explore the inside.

I love that Portugal is made up of so many amazing towns. One of the reasons we moved to Leiria is its proximity to other towns we want to see. Caldas da Rainha, Nazare, Tomar, and Obidos are all towns nearby that I really want to see. And those are just the ones I know of. Like I said, I had never heard of Batalha, but I loved it. I look forward to going there again.

One of the reasons we moved to Portugal is so that we can explore the rest of Europe. That’s still high on our list, but with the increased Covid regulations it might be harder over the next several months. I’m glad that there are so many places within Portugal that we want to see. Madeira Island is high on my list for next year. So are Coimbra and Porto. Porto looks so amazing in pictures and I can’t wait to see it in person.

There is still so much we need to learn. Public transportation around Lisbon was easy, but we need to learn it around here. There is a bus station downtown, and Leiria has a train station somewhere too. I guess we will have to learn next weekend when we head to Setubal!

Coming back to our apartment today was great. We had a lot of big and exciting days in Lisbon, but we always returned to an apartment that was too small for us and wasn’t home. Coming back to our apartment today really felt like home and I love that so much. Our apartment is further from town than I want, but other than that I really love the apartment. I can definitely see living here for 3 years, exploring Portugal, and finding the town/city we want to live in long term. The next few years are going to be a lot of fun.