There are heroic tales aplenty, in Portugal. Tales of indomitable people, resisting and fighting with unbreakable courage; countless episodes of a fiercely independent character, which will rather break than bend. Tomar had its share of fights, of valorous knights, of successful and failed sieges, and it was taken by force now and again. If one is to look with the distance that time affords, though, the history of the city seems to be marked rather by an uncanny ability to adequate itself to the surrounding circumstances. Adaptation became the form of resistance that Tomar developed. It is not a matter of complacency or lack of spine. We would dare say that it is a blend of survival instinct and of the laziness that comes with comfort. For who would find fault, indeed, in such a beautiful and meek valley, so decorously courting the river that runs through it?