A Convent, a Nobel and the Tesla

Standing before the Convent at Mafra, you cannot help but be dwarfed by its sheer size. The Convent imposes more by its gargantuan proportions than by its beauty. A Collossus, indeed. The Tesla, on the other hand, imposes itself as leader of the pack when all four-wheeled creatures are concerned by might of its elegant lines and top-nodge technology.

The day was bleak as befits Mafra, a convent enshrouded in horrid legends of giant human-eating mice, a convent built by a megalomaniac king with the riches of a crumbling overseas empire and a convent that was never truly finished. Bleakness is also an accurate rendition of Nobel-laureate José Saramago's novel Baltasar and Blimunda, whose plot is erected around the trials and tribulations of the workers who built the Collossus. A tragic love story much in the likes of Dylan Thomas' "Though lovers be lost love shall not; And death shall have no dominion".

I think the only happiness on such day of bleakness came from the Tesla and we, a stark contrast to the greyish, cold and damp environment around. Still, one cannot but be stunned in amazement at a monument that so bluntly dominates the landscape.

And yes, the Tesla über-aficionado pictured above is still stunned in amazement at how perfectly car-perfect the Model S is.