Travel Day 811 – Evora to Losbon, PORTUGAL
The guest house we stayed at in Evora looked like an old mansion and when we woke up, we were greeted by the sun floating through the window and filling our room with a nice warm light…
St. Anton’s Church and Praca do Giraldo in UNESCO enlisted Evora, Portugal
It was quite obvious that Evora was the perfect kind of place to get stuck at for a while and we certainly would have if we wouldn’t have to catch a flight from Lisbon in two days’ time. So we reckoned that we would make the best use of the day while exploring the Historic Centre of Evora, which was a UNESCO World Heritage Site, during daylight hours and then catching a bus to Lisbon in the evening. Only the amazing local dinner from last night kept tempting us to stay at least another night…
On our city exploration we first walked back over to the elevated plaza in the town center with the ruins of the Roman Temple. From there we had already a nice view over parts of the town and could even make out where the aqueduct was passing the city wall and disappearing in the city itself. We then went to visit the big Se Cathedral of Evora and since it was possible to climb the roof, we could enjoy an even better view of the entire UNESCO enlisted old town of Evora with its whitewashed houses…
Small Alleys and Whitewashed Houses of UNESCO Site Evora, Portugal
When continuing to walk around, it quickly became our mission of the day to explore as many of the little winding alleyways as possible. Eventually we found the aqueduct and followed it to a fortress outside the city. It was actually quite funny to see all the little shops that were built into the arches of the aqueduct, as we passed them along the way. But from close up the aqueduct didn’t look quite like those the Romans used to build and in the end we found out that it was in fact added to the city during medieval times…
Eventually we reached the point where we felt that we had seen pretty much every single whitewashed house in town and all the churches up to the Church of Graca, so we then retired to the main square, Praca do Giraldo, for some nice local lunch. While it was great to be sitting in the mid-day sun with the old St. Anton’s Church in the background and enjoying a meal as well as some of the great Portuguese Pastel de Nata pastries, we were already a bit sad that we had to carry on so soon. Evora really was a fantastic place and one literally felt transported back into the 15th century when it was the residence of the Portuguese kings…
Church of Graca in UNESCO World Heritage Center of Evora, Portugal
Nevertheless, making best use of our limited time meant for us, while the sun was slowly setting, we boarded a local bus and took off for Lisbon. A subway ride and a short walk thereafter, we were checked into our hostel and then back on the streets hunting for a decent dinner place. The hostel owner had recommended a street with nice local restaurants and after only a brief evaluation we stormed into the first one that looked busy enough to appear popular. As the place might have been popular, only when we received an English menu did we realize that we were sitting in an Indian restaurant…
Out of all the local places we had picked the only foreign restaurant, but we simply decided to make the best out of it and order some Goa specials. Funny enough, but after chasing Portuguese traces in India, we were now all of a sudden finding Indian traces in Portugal…
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