07:36:47 05/05/2022

We drove from Lagos to Evora yesterstay, its about a 3 hour drive north through the middle of the country.  We passed a number of communities, large and small, groves of what we think were olive orchards, and fields of everthing you can possibly grow.  The road system here in Portugal is excellent.  You know when you're about to encounter a community because you are suddenly going around turn circle after turn circle, both on the way in, sometime through, and definitely on the way out of any community on the road.

There are these very large birds, storks, that summer here and they build their nests on anything elevated.  We did run into some construction which gave us the ability to take some decent pictures.

One we reached Evora, a walled city, we parked the car just outside the city walls.  There's no way we could reasonably drive within the walls or park without damaging the car.  The narrow cobble stone streets best allow a small vehicle through, though we do see a few larger cars, which I think are all tourists that have never driven in Europe before.

Evora provides many free parking lots just outside the city wall for both tourists and people who live and work here.

We found our hotel, which was a olive pressing facility back in the day (many days ago).  After checking in, we walked through to the town square to find some lunch.  The hotel had given us a suggestion, the restaurant was not open.  We found some food at an English style restaurant - just something to fill the belly.

After some lunch we followed Rick Steeves walking tour of Evora - it only took an hour but we did take in the views of Evora, saw the Cathedral, and checked out one of the more interesting and creepy things we've visited in Europe - The Chapel of Bones.  This is a small chapel whose walls and ceiling were constructed from the bones, skulls included, of monks.  The bones are set in concrete but are fully exposed.

We tried to find a wine tasting place, there are two here, one was closed and the other was busy, so we decided to head back to the hotel, and just get a glass of wine there.  

The supper place that was suggested by the hotel was just around the corner, we went for about 7:30pm and found that the only seating was outside unless you had a reservation.  Well there are lots of bugs, flies around that bite, so we decided to head back to the hotel.  They server up tapas and small plates so we got something simple for supper just a meat and cheese board.

Tomorrow we hope to be able to arrange a wine tour in the region, and go see some Monolithic sites that are about a 30 minute drive from the city.