Portugal 7 - on from Lisbon and it's homeward bound

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We had a bad night , Suzy rocked with the thud, thud of the music from the club across the road and she rattled from the beat of the traffic passing by. Even Sion hid inside his comfort blanket and friend Baa Baa the sheep. We called in to ask for a refund and were curtly told no chance. Perhaps by now we should have learned to check the site and the plots first before parting with money. And best of all only pay for one night until the campsite proves a good place to stay.



We were glad to leave the city and head out again into the Portuguese countryside. The roads were yet again empty. It was Monday morning after all and we are now heading back home. We have reached the furthest point of the holiday and its time to turn around. The house sale has been agreed and we were getting bombarded with phone calls from the estate agents checking things were Ok and from the solicitors who were acting for us. The heat was still on and the roads were dusty as we headed for Evora.



Cork oaks lined the roads. Their barks shorn and painted orange. It would be ten years before they would be harvested again. We stopped at an aire on the way and watched the humming bees and swallow tail butterflies alighting on the plants. Sion sat on a prickly pear but the least said about that the better. The aires seems a bit cleaner, tidier and more user friendly in this part of the country.

We arrived at our camping site at Evora and it seemed a much better proposition with larger plots. We watched the antics of the caravanners trying to get on to the plot. Was it perfect for them or did they need to inch it a few inches to get the right spot? Did they need the chocks out to inch it up on one side more than the other? Would the TV work? It was all good fun and we chuckled a lot at them. There was a lovely swimming pool on site and I tried it out. The shop and restaurant were both closed as it was the end of the season. It was another Orbiter site and an ACSI one but a much nicer one and one we felt more comfortable in. The small bar played a bit of boom boom music and we thought about our parents in the 1960’s who must have listened to the Beatles and complained about that racket and noise. They shouted and were not singing. Were we becoming the same as most music now sound boom boom and thud thud and they talk rather than sing. Wifi was free but limited and very slow. The bus stopped outside the campsite regularly and the town was 2 kms before. The toilet was dated but clean.

The next day we caught the bus in fare 2 euros 20 each and it dropped us in the city centre after a trip around the houses picking up along the way. We stopped for coffee and cakes. A palmeria for Glenn and a cappuccino and an espresso and parra a sort of pastry cake for me. There was a lot of shabby buildings and the place had a sort of Italian feel to it The town rose to prominence under the Romans and flourished through the Middle Ages. It was a popular residence of the Portuguese kings and it was easy to see why. We walked from the bus to the main square passing the cathedral which took over 50 years to build and looked distinctly fortress like. We didn’t go inside. We were perhaps a little too churched out and it was hot. From the church you come down hill to the square the Praca do Giraldo which has a fountain erected in 1571.

The tiny streets were full of shops some tat but some with typical Portuguese painted plates. I bought a pink and silver scarf and one in kingfisher blue from a Chinese shopowner who asked us where we had come from. When we told him Wales he replied Bale. Obviously a football lover then.

Perhaps our most gruesome visit over the last few years took place here at Evora when we visited the Capela dos Ossos, the chapel of the bones in the chapel of Sao Francisco. This chapel was constructed in the 17^th century using the remains of 5,000 monks. The entrance portico has an inscription which reads Nos ossos que aqui estamos, pelos vossos esperamos which means we bones that are here await yours. The doorway is made up of femurs, fibulas and tibulas and skulls surround the archway. Mouths gaping and smiling back lifelessly at us. A large skull forming the key stone holding the whole together. The walls are made up of femus and other bones. Arches formed out of skulls. Pillars constructed of skulls and bones laid on top of each other. And to top it all two leathery brown lifeless corpses hang from the walls. All to remind the monks of their own mortality. They certainly made us think of ours. Glenn did not enjoy the experience and found it gruesome.

For me it held a certain fascination. A horror of the thought that we were gawping at long dead people. Monks who once talked amongst themselves. Saw the world through their own eyes, discussed events and had lives that they lived to the full. The sadness was that eventually we too would end up like them. Lifeless bits of bone. It was worth the entry fee of a couple of a euros but not to every ones taste.

And finally to the top of the town where there are the remains of Roman walls and a roman temple to the goddess Diana. It was built sometime between 2^nd and 3^rd century and was rather lovely.

From here we decided to move on to Merida another Roman town but found ourselves driving round and round in circles trying to find parking. In a car it is easy. In Suzy not so. We had thought we had found suitable parking by checking Google earth before we left home. In the back of our minds we both had the feeling that there was a lot of rough empty ground near what looked like the bull ring. However when we got in to the town we could see the Bull ring and it looked new and well cared for. Nothing like the one we expected. To make matters worse we thought that it looked as if it were too busy to be a parking place so we drove round and down narrow streets before we gave Merida up as a bad job and headed for our planned overnight stop of Caceres.

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Photos

Evora
A gruesome reminder of your own mortality

Evora
The chapel of the bones

Evora
The town centre

Evora
the temple of Diana

Evora
An interesting shop window

Evora
Gardens in the town centre