Evora - In which a last second diversion becomes the best part of the trip

When planning this trip, I really wanted a time when we would just chill out, do very little, and sit by a beach. The Algarve rang out like a gleaming beacon of emerald seas with gorgeous caves a slow pace. Yet when our planned trip to the Algarve came around, so did the 50° weather, wind, and rain. What?! You can't sit on a beach, much less take a boat ride through rocky alcoves, with a frigid wind coming off the water. So with great regret and disappointment, Nick and I canceled our beach trip the night before we were scheduled to take off. But where else could we possibly go?

As usual, I turned to our Rick Steve's guidebook and found Evora, which Steve's described as a "sizzling, arid plain." Well, sizzling and arid it would not be, but at least it offered more to do when our beach weather failed to materialize. So we booked a last minute hotel, which ended up being our favorite place we stayed on our entire trip, picked up our rental car in Granada (a brand new red Mercedes which made both Nick and I sweat with the anxiety having never driven anything so fine in our lives) and took off driving into the planes of Spain. We only realized we had crossed the border when the street signs changed to Portuguese.

Not fond of driving a car through tiny cobblestone lanes initially designed for horses and people alone, we parked outside of the medieval city wall and hiked in with all our luggage on our backs uphill into the city center to find our hotel, the Noble House. When we got there, I asked if where we had parked was appropriate, or if we had to go pay somewhere. When the woman showing us our room heard we had walked here from the parking area outside the wall, her eyes widened and she said "No indeed, you have already paid." The room was airy and comfortable with a beautiful original fresco on the ceiling. There was also the famous Portuguese pastry, pastel de nata, waiting for us. I was at first wary that this would be the first custard tart that Nick would eat on our visit to Portugal, but I shouldn't have been. They were delicious, maybe the best that we had the entire trip. So far, this last second excursion was looking like it might be a success.

The road on which we found our hotel

We had made one fatal error, however, in that we had showed up around 3:00 and had not eaten lunch. Every restaurant we found had shut down until 7:00 in order to prepare for dinner, and we were practically dead on our feet. Although many people in Evora did not speak English, a chef at one of the restaurants we wandered by took pity on us. He jovially described to us where we might be able to find some food and chatted with us for a bit, and while he was very clear he could not vouch for the quality of the food we might find at this hour, we quickly found something given his directions (note: if you order a hamburger at a dive bar in Evora, the patty will be made of pork, not beef, or at least ours was). 

After we were thoroughly fed, we could truly appreciate how charming this beautiful little city is. The buildings in the city are all painted white, yellow, and sky blue, colors which help keep heat and flies away. The city also boasts roman aqueducts, a medieval wall, a Roman temple, a cathedral, and a chapel of bones. If this sounds like a number of other European cities, consider that this place is considerably smaller and less discovered, with a unique charm that left us feeling like we had the city all to ourselves. It didn't hurt that we wandered into Ervideira Wine Shop for some tastings before happily stumbling our way through the cobblestone streets.

The main square in Evora, Praca do Giraldo.

A gorgeous flower garden in front of the Roman Temple

We tended to play games with the sun the entire day: as long as we were inside, the sun came out and teased us. As soon as we were outside, especially if we were on a roof or a high viewpoint, the sky would cloud over, the wind would start howling, and we would be forced to duck under for cover. 

The cathedral in Evora is no more grand than any other cathedral you might find in Europe. However, the outside is beautifully decrepit, with moss, lichen, and plants growing out of broken shingles or cracks in the stone. Exploring the area surrounding this cathedral was one of our favorite parts.

One of the most unique parts of Evora, however, was the chapel of bones, or Capela dos Ossos. The words above the door to the chapel say, "We bones in here wait for yours to join us." Walking in, all the walls are arches are lined with the bones of people who were buried in various churchyards in Evora, then exhumed by three Franciscan monks who had grown concerned that the congregants in Evora cared more for earthly possessions and stature than their eternal souls. When you walk into the attached Church of St Francis and see the ornately decorated chapels along the sides, slathered in gold leaf, you begin to understand why the Franciscans, dedicated to simplicity, might have felt this way.

The chapel of bones

The best view of the city can be found from the top of the chapel. This was one of those instances where the wind began to howl and threaten to blow you off the roof, but the view was worth it.

Work being done in the cloisters

We also had some of our best meals in Evora. Our first evening we went to Taska Fina, where the owner welcomed us in and sat and chatted with us for a while, talking about Evora, his family, the variations in the pork and sausage on the menu, and of course Rick Steves. His children played in the back of the restaurant, and after a half hour his wife came in carrying some supplies for the evening's meals. It's a small place, and after the seven or so tables had filled up they closed the restaurant, leaving those of us in their to drink and savor and bask in the warm glow of this adorable eatery.
We not only found interesting history inside Evora but even older sites outside. There are several sets of megalithic monuments just outside the city, which were easily reached on our way to Lisbon. Although you can get here with a bus tour, having the rental car made this adventure particularly easy, although at times we ended up driving down dirt roads made entirely of muddy potholes that threatened to swallow the car. As we meandered our way through, cows watched us, chewing dully on just another day wandering between the cork trees. The landscape was gorgeous, and the monuments well worth some of the stress put on the rental. We first stopped at the Anta Granda do Zambujeira, a burial tomb dating back to 4000-3000 BC.

Anta Granda do Zambujeira

Next we visited the Cromeleque dos Almendres, from 5500 BC, making it 2000 years older than Stonehenge. While we were there, there was a man standing in the center of the ring of stones, recording himself reading a poem over and over again. He was our only companion, although to be fair we had just waited out a torrential downpour in the car before trudging through the mud to get here. The stones are believed to have functioned as a celestial calendar and served as a holy place for those worshipping the sun.

Cromeleque dos Almendres

Our trusty car made it through all our adventures

After that we were off to Lisbon. Although we hand't intended to come to Evora, it was definitely one of the highpoints of the trip, not only because it gave us the opportunity to slow down and explore an area with fewer tourists but also because we went into the city with few expectations. The people were incredibly friendly and kind, and while the overwhelming thrum of people celebrating Holy Week in Spain had left these two introverts a little on edge, Evora ended up offering a little bit of the quiet, restorative peace that we needed, even if it continued to rain as all the locals told us, "It never rains here!"