Evora and the Alentejo plains
August 22nd 2015 Portugal produces most of the world’s cork, from cork oak trees -- evergreens with leaves, numbers painted on them, and a strange “naked” appearance -- which dot the Alentejo landscape. When trees are over twenty-five years of age and every nine or ten summers thereafter, the bark is stripped off, leaving only a thin inner layer for protection. Each tree produces several hundred pounds of va
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