Quinta da Cardiga on the Portuguese Camino

On the Camino de Santiago near Golega, Portugal
From Wikipedia translated from Portuguese:
Quinta da Cardiga is an old palatial farm located in Golegã .
The donation of Quinta da Cardiga to the Knights Templar was made in 1169 by D. Afonso Henriques, for clearing and cultivation. Once this Order was extinguished, it passed to the domain of the Order of Christ , which built a summer farm there (c. 1540-1542). The design of the farm's complex (including the palace, the barn, the chapel and the cloister) is attributed to the design of the architect João de Castilho . [ 1 ]
History
According to Family Stories, Nicola Kovacich, a native of Ragusa, arrived in Portugal at the age of thirteen without knowing a word of Portuguese. With the fruit of his work, he managed to find a good house and became the owner of an important cordage factory in Barreiro. Emília Firmina, his daughter, married José Lamas with whom she had eleven children.
José Lamas, a descendant of António Gonsalves de Sousa, came from Lamas d'Orelhão to work in Lisbon when he was very young. He went to India twice to work for his boss, when he returned he invested his savings in a very small shop where he sold tea from India, teaching him how to make it. It was the first store in Portugal where tea was sold. You could only buy it in pharmacies. He increased his business by buying a small sole factory in Junqueira. Due to being from Lamas, it was with this name that he became known and, over time, the nickname Gonsalves de Sousa, was replaced by "Lamas". His eldest daughter was called Maria Luiza Covachic Lamas. She loved opera, good concerts, and the society life in which she had been brought up as an unmarried woman.
António Zagallo Gomes Coelho, son of Rosa de Oliveira Zagallo and António Gomes Coelho, born in Ovar , lived with his parents in the house where Júlio Dinis , their nephew, came to write As Pupilas do Senhor Rector. He graduated in medicine and came to practice in Vila Nova da Barquinha for a position that was vacant. However, after having inherited, together with his wife Maria Luiza Covachic Lamas, Quinta da Cardiga, he dedicated himself to managing it full time.
In 1892, together with his wife and four children, he moved to Atalaia , to a house they bought opposite the Igreja Matriz, having furnished it with furniture, clothes and crockery brought from Quinta da Cardiga. Meanwhile, the farm was sold to the current owners.
Cardiga Castle, located in the current Quinta da Cardiga, was donated to the Knights Templar in 1165 by D. Afonso Henriques. Later, it became a farm, in the municipality of Golegã, with houses with a garden, vegetable garden, chapel, stables, stables, houses for servants, inns, oil mill and other workshops and outbuildings.
Quinta da Cardiga, together with the castle of Ozêzere, the tower of Atalaia and the castle of Almourol were watch posts for the Temple's militia. Quinta da Cardiga was so important that in 1550, D. João III authorized his brother to change the course of the Tagus River, making it pass through Cardiga. In 1580, Filipe II, coming from the Cortes of Tomar on his way to Lisbon , rested in Cardiga.
Among the various purchases he made, António Zagallo Gomes Coelho bought the palace of the Counts of Atalaia - currently Casa do Patriarca, Casal das Freiras between Golegã and Cardiga, and it was he who started the first buildings in Entroncamento, to rent the houses to railroad workers. Out of curiosity, the lease contract gave a one-month bonus to anyone who paid the rent on time.