the Pousada's shady courtyard

Evora and the Alentejo plains

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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 ... read more

Europe » Portugal » Alentejo » Évora

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Following its heyday as a world power during the 15th and 16th centuries, Portugal lost much of its wealth and status with the destruction of Lisbon in a 1755 earthquake, occupation during the Napoleonic Wars, and the independence in 1822 of Brazil a... ... read more