Evora

Evora

"We might not always end up where we intended, but you have got to admit that everywhere we end up is pretty cool."

When I was planning my trip through Portugal, even before Maureen was on board, I knew I wanted to visit Evora. When I was in Lisbon before, I kept seeing signs on the road. Eventually, my curiosity got the better of me and I took to the web to learn that there was a Roman temple there. That was good enough for me! It went on the itinerary.

So, we placed Evora on the list just before Merida (also known for its Roman sites), just after Sagres at the end of the earth.

On the way, we saw a sign on the road for a town with a castle (I have become quite fixated with castles on this trip), and we decided to make a side trip. The GPS lady assured us that our castle was only 3 kilometers from the road. And sure enough, we came upon the town with the castle complex on the hill in just a few minutes.

I want to take this opportunity to explain my most basic sight seeing philosophy: before you park at the first lot you find, you have to drive to the destination, and see how close you can park. I live by this rule of thumb. So, with this in mind, we ascended the steep hill, mountain almost, to the crest of the castle. We kept getting closer and closer. Soon, we were in front of the church and were winding through the narrow streets of the village. But, alas, there were no spots to leave the car. "You better be taking pictures! There is no way we could ever get this close to some of this stuff!"

Before I knew it, we had found our way to the end of the only street which could take us out of the village. This narrow street had metal barricades across it. "Now what..." Just then, from the car in front of us (perhaps I was not the only one who lives by the golden rule of sight seeing) jumped an older woman who swiftly moved the metal barricades, leaving them open for our escape. We had done it! We had seen the whole castle-village complex and had never once left the car!

So, on to our destination:

We arrived at Evora just before 2pm and were again on the hunt for our hotel: GPS lady did not think our hotel's address was worthy of including in her bag of tricks. We made three passes around the perimeter of the town when we saw the sign for our hotel: Albargaria Vittoria, a very modest hotel... really more of a motel by my definition of the term. We asked the receptionist what the best way was to reach the city center. She replied that we were a short 10-15 minute walk to the center of town. I looked at Maureen and said, "I'll bet we can get closer if we drive over and park on the other side of town."

Famous last words.
We drove over to the other side of town, where the temple to Diana was (although, most scholars agree that Diana was not the goddess worshiped there). Rather than park and walk up, I suggested that we drive inside the city walls and see how close we could get. I must admit that Evora's streets are very, very narrow, in fact, the narrowest I have seen on this or any trip I have taken. At one point, I feared we woudl get stuck between two pillars. But, we made it through, seeing many nooks and crannies generally off the beaten path. Then, as if by magic, in front of us sprung up the temple. We slowed down, took out our camera and snapped away. Objective reached!

Not ready for the adventure to end, we decided to stop for lunch (Maureen had seen a McDonalds sign when we came into town) and plot our next move. Besides, we had seen all of Evora. We needed to move further afield.

Over a couple of Big Macs, we opened up our guide books and skimmed the sections around Evora. Maureen found the money shot:

"Hey, listen to this one: 'Monseraz is a quaint hill town where women sit along the roads crocheting and bitches lie at their feet with distended teats.' What do you think THAT means?"

"I think that means we have found our new destination. I want to see some bitches..."

So, we were off to Monseraz.

In about 45 minutes, we arrived at a hill-top castle at the edge of the largest lake in all of Europe. We made our ascent, this time, passing no cars, no people. When we got to the very tip top of the hill, he were forced to park in a lot, but this lot was not like the lots we had seen earlier. This one was almost completely empty. Ours was one of 3 cars in the lot. We started up the sharp incline set before the ramparts. Upon entering one of the stone gates, Maureen made a very startling observation:

"I think we are the only ones here."

She was right. There were NO people out and about. There were NO sounds coming from the houses, which were all closed up tight. It was like no one was home and we were letting ourselves into someone else's house, uninvited. We walked, took pictures, looked around. Eventually, we found a small gift shop which was open, and within a couple of minutes, we were joined by a German couple. At "rush hour" Maureen counted 9 people total hobbling along on the uneven cobblestone avenue.

After about 45 minutes of wandering around, we decided it was time to return to 'civilization' and returned to the car. The problem was that the way we came in was all one way and we couldn't find the way out. Maureen plugged EVORA into the GPS and the GPS lady started our directions back. However, GPS lady was a little confused and she directed us to another (out of bounds) area of the town. But, it was really fortuitous that we ended up where we did.

"Maureen! Look!!"

And sure enough, we were sitting on a hill directly opposite from the village we had just explored. We had a unique vantage point from which to snap pictures. It was almost as it we were standing over the town and someone had tilted it toward us for a better view.

"We might not always end up where we intended, but you have got to admit that everywhere we end up is pretty cool." We didn't see any bitches, but we did end up in a completely unpredicably cool place.