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I have always wanted to visit Fatima and Lourdes, two sites considered holy by the Catholic Church.
I never felt that same yearning about visiting Jerusalem and Bethlehem, the more popular and must-visit pilgrimage sites of the faithful.
I don't know why. Probably because the Virgin Mary appeared to children in Fatima in Portugal and Lourdes in France.
I guess I am more Catholic than I would love to admit
So it was only natural when we decided to visit Lisbon that I had to include Fatima on our itinerary.
It was only one and half hours by bus from Lisbon, so it can just be a day trip.
From our hotel, we can take the Metro underground to the bus station but we decided to take a taxi instead.
We had trouble explaining to the tough-looking lady taxi driver where we wanted to go.
"Bus terminal" we told her and were met with a blank look.
Thank god for smart phones and Google Translate.
Guess what is bus terminal in Portuguese? "Terminal de omnibus."
"Where you going?" she asked.
When we told her Fatima, she wanted to know whether we would like to go by taxi.
"No, we will take the bus," we quickly replied.
She had no trouble understanding our English.
The taxi fare was €12 (RM52). And on the way back we took the Metro. The three Metro tickets cost us less than the taxi fare.
The bus leaves every hour from Lisbon and the journey was comfortable. The fare was €17 (RM74) each for a single journey.
A whole town has sprung up from what was once a rural area where the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared before three shepherd children -- nine-year-old Lucia Santos and her cousins Jacinta and Francisco Marto.
There are lots of hotels here but guess which one I would love to stay at?
Hotel Aleluia. Believe me. There is such a place.
You have to walk for about 15 minutes before you reach the church grounds.
The first building you see is this modern flat-roof building. At first I thought it was a convention hall, so I just walked past it.
In front of this building stands a very tall crucifix. It is more like a modern day sculpture than the traditional Christian cross.
As you walk past this building, there in the distance on top of a hill is the old church.
For me, the design was a blend of the St Anne's Church in Bukit Mertajam and St Peter's in the Vatican.
There is a huge ground separating this new building from the old church.
On pilgrimage days (13th day of each month from May to October), I can imagine this place would be flooded with the faithful.
I got the month right, the day wrong.
We were here on June 24, so the place looks almost deserted.
The only sign of activity was in a chapel to our left, just below the church.
As far as I can make out, the service was in German. Or was it Portuguese?
The real faithful would be making this journey to the church on their knees.
I walked. Humbly, I might add.
I was in for another disappointment as I was about to enter the church. It was under renovation. Just my luck.
We could not enter by the main door and had to go in by a side door. We were restricted to the front of the church. The rest of the building was closed to the public.
That spoiled the mood for me, so much so that I left without realizing that I had missed the resting place of the three children who saw Our Lady.
In fact, I went outside the church looking for their tombs. Silly me. I had to make my way back inside the church after I realized my mistake.
Our Lady appeared before these three children on May 13, 1917 and the 13th of the consecutive 5 months after that.
Her appeal to the world then, through the children, was that we need to pray more to prevent world wars and to achieve peace.
Fatima attracted the attention of the world then as the First World War was raging and the communists were seizing power in Russia and threatening to spread its armed revolution throughout the world.
Added to that was the mystery of the Three Secrets which Our Lady revealed to the children.
The first secret was a vision of Hell. After seeing this vision. Lucia asked whether she and her cousins would go to Heaven.
Yes, Our Lady told her.
The cousins Jacinta and Francisco would go first but Our Lady told Lucia she had to wait as she had work to do for Jesus.
Francisco died two years later and Jacinta a year after that, both victims of the Great Spanish Flu. Lucia died on Feb 13, 2005.
The official position of the Catholic Church is that the events are "worthy of belief."
On the way out, I stopped at this modern convention-looking building. I went inside and discovered it was a church.
I was correct. It was like a convention hall inside. It was nothing like any Catholic church I have ever seen.
Outside, there was a glass sculpture with holy praises to God written in the different languages of the world.
The words "kasih Allah" caught my eyes.
My thoughts then were: Malaysia could do with that now. And the world, too.