Beja & Evora

Breakfast at the apartment this morning, finished packing up the car, then good-byes to Albufeira and we are on the road.

First stop is approximately 1.5 hours from Albufeira at a town called Beja. This is a smaller town that we wanted to visit a castle. This castle had an amazing tower, the nicest we have seen so far. From the top we had some nice views of the surrounding scenery. And it was free, bonus. This morning we have traveled through some amazing scenery, from mountains to flat lands like our prairies. We have seen many grape vines, and olive trees, as well as quite a few cork trees. We also saw about 10 overpasses half done and no sign of work being done on them.

Cork Trees

Vineyards

Beautiful castle tower

View of church from castle

After the castle we visited the Church which was very pretty. There were beautiful wooden floors here, and lots of little rooms off the main church. The Church dated back to the 15^th century.

When we left the church we stopped at the square where there was a little market and grocery store set up. We picked up some bread, cheese, lettuce and tomatoes to make sandwiches somewhere along the way. Drove for about another hour and saw signs for a picnic area so stopped here. What a sad sight, so much garbage lying around, a lot of it from McDonalds, they really needed to clean up this spot. Of course after we left here and drove a few more miles there were some nice dirt roads we could have pulled off on, one place was very pretty with olive trees and sheep all around, oh well next time.

Lunchtime

Following lunch we had a short drive left to Evora, which was our final destination for tonight. This is a walled city, lots of places to explore. First stop we found a room for 35 Euro for the night, we splurged, the room with a shared bathroom was 30 Euro, I voted for the extra 5 Euro for a bathroom in the room!

Next stop was the tourist centre to get some information. They had these audio tours for rent for 2 Euro each, I love these, it is a great way to get more history of the area instead of just walking around and looking at the buildings, best tour ever for 2 Euro. Evora is a city all built on a hill, good thing we've had lots of practice climbing hill in Albufeira.

In Evora we visited the Cathedral, which is the largest in Portugal. We climbed the tower here as well, another 56 steps, but some great views of the city. At one time this city was the favorite of the royals, so lots of impressive buildings around. We visited a couple of other churches as well, but probably the most impressive/unusal was the Chapel of Bones. I guess at one time it was decided the the monks should all be put to rest in the same place, so the monks from all over the country were brought here, and this chapel is just full of bones. Quite the architects would have put this place together!

Along the drive, we did not stop at this castle!

Cemetery entrance in Evora

Cemetery in Evora

Evora Cathedral

Rooftop after climbing tower in Cathedral

Roman temple ruins in Evora

More narrow streets

Add caption

Chapel of Bones in Evora - look closely

New flowers we have seen just out, reminded us of lupins from home

Ruins in the park, lots of peacocks around, they are loud!

Lots of nice ivy

How about this one Craig?

They also have some Roman temple ruins here, the columns are still standing and are very impressive, though small I'm sure compared to Rome. The aqueduct from the 16 century still remains as well, which is very impressive, it is 20 km long.

Aquaduct

Are we in Grecoville?

Robin can you name this one?

How about this one?

Roman ruins at night

7-8-9 club

The temperature is doing weird things today. It has been so cold I wish I had mitts, and so hot I wished I was in shorts. At one point on our walk it started to hail, there was a man in a church that invited us into the church to wait out the storm. This was a tiny church, very nice of him to invite us in.

So far we have been walking around town for 4.5 hours, and are now back in the room for a break before supper. Most of the restaurants don't seem to open before 7 or 8 PM for supper tonight, so our plan is to go to supper, then there is a procession at 10PM around town for good Friday, so if we are not too tired we hope to get to that.

Had a really fun mean at a little typical Portuguese place that the guy we rented the room from recommended. It was quite a small restaurant and we were sat at a table for 6 with another couple that were sitting at the other end. They were speaking French, but spoke English as well. She was originally from California, and him from Belgium, and are teachers spending Easter break here in Portugal. Funny because they are doing the trip exactly opposite than us, they flew into Faro, then drove to Lisbon, and are finishing their holiday in the Algarve. We flew into Lisbon, drove to Algarve and finishing our trip in Lisbon again. Fun because we were able to exchange some must see places with each other, they were quite like us, like off the beaten path places, of course they would be to run into them at a restaurant like this. A group of 20 guys came in at the end, they were having a fantastic time, ordering these huge meter beer things that come in a huge test tube. Turns out one of them is getting married, they were in for a long night!

After supper we walked around to take some nice evening pictures. Lots of the monuments and churches are lit up here at night, it is very pretty. We stayed for the procession as well, many people had candles that were lit during the procession. There was one drum band at the beginning, and a full band at the end, and in between many people following the priest, there had to have been one thousand people at least, we didn't follow the procession to the end at the Church, no way would we have been able to get in. 

Procession for Good Friday

 Time for bed, a long travel day tomorrow as we make our way to Porto.