Blogs from Évora, Alentejo, Portugal, Europe

Monday 21st February 2010 Back on the road, this time north east to Evora. A superb drive across country through cork oak groves, vineyards and orange orchards. Tuesday 22nd February 2010 Walk into Evora where we discover a film crew making a commercial for a supermarket. The boys are fascinated by the use of a story board to script the shoot. Walk around the old town of Evora visiting the Cathedral’s chapel of bones and the famous Roman Temple of Diana. Lunch in the main square followed by a visit to the archaeological museum and the office of the local wine producers where a tasting inevitably ensues. ... read more

We got out of Porto much faster than we got in. It's amazing, you can get around really quickly when you're on the right road. We headed South on the Autovia, Portugal's version of the Autobahn. The official speed limit is 120 kilometers per hour (about 72 mph), but after observing the BMWs travelling at 160-180, I decided that 140 (approx. 84 mph) was not likely to attract the attention of the Policia. That meant we made pretty rapid progress, arriving at Sines in 4 hours. Sines is a rapidly-changing town. Probably 10 years ago it was a decaying fishing town, but now it is undergoing rapid redevelopment into a container-shipping port and beach town. Most of the historical houses have been renovated into holiday rentals. The lifelong Portuguese population is adapting to seeing visitors from ... read more

“A church made of bone!?” I exclaimed. “Yes, and tastefully done too,” came Ralph’s reply. The bus taking both of us from the city of Palmyra in Syria continued to rumble along the dusty, desert highway as visions of a bone church unfurled in my mind. I again questioned, “Human bone?” and the answer, though expected, was still a surprising “Yes”. I contemplated such a church, and thought that anything constructed of human bone would be confined to the realm of computer games, where these unholy places were always guarded by a great horned demon who pursued any foolhardy intruder relentlessly with a massive spiked club. The words, “I must see this place!” soon leapt from my mouth with great conviction, and thus my quest was born. Unfortunately, the learned Ralph could not recall the location ... read more

Évora. Déjà ce nom évocateur, témoigne d’un riche passé,à la fois complexe et varié. Du cromolech des almendres (sortes de Menhirs de l’age néolithique,favorisant la forme phallique plus que toute autre)aux palais,couvents et cathédrale qui sont regroupés sur ce promontoire de la taille d’un petit Mont-Royal,Évora étale ses 2000 ans d’histoire sous toutes ses formes. Un temple romain côtoie une cathédrale transitant entre le style roman et gothique où ,parait-il Vasco de Gama aurait reçu les drapeaux de sa flotte avant de quitter pour l’orient,le palais des comtes de Basto, ancien alcazar mauresque est assis sur la muraille romano-gotho-musulmane (s’cusez ce charabia,j’ai copié ça dans le guide,en gros ça veut dire que les envahisseurs successifs trop paresseux pour se créer un style architechtural distinct bâtissait leur cabanes sur les ruines de leu... read more

A Rainy Day Won’t Stop Our Fun A Night of Fabulous Food Last night we finally got a moment of down time to focus on our finances. After posting yesterday’s blog we went back to our hotel and Kel worked some Excel finance magic. She created a spreadsheet that allows us to tally our daily costs broken down by food, living, transportation, etc. The spreadsheet gives us a daily total, a monthly average and a yearly average. This yearly average, in true Capital One style, gives us a Green/Yellow/Red status on what we expect our average daily expenses to be. Thus, after calculating our expenses thus far, we were able to figure out that we had a decent balance left for the day, which lead us to splurge a little for dinner. Our guidebook suggested ... read more