Évora in the centre, Lisbon to its west.
A snippet cut from The Times’ Travel Section over a year ago says that ‘Portugal’s south-central Alentejo (note 1) region is an underrated spot for fine red wine and ‘porco preto’, that’s pork from acorn-fed black pigs. The walled city of Évora is a charming base from which to explore. Between outings to hilltop Monsaraz and along the Alentejo Wine Route, queue to try that pork inside Botequim de Mouraria or to scoff typically simple local dishes such as dogfish soup at rustic Fialho. Évora also has temples and a skull-filled Chapel of Bones to explore, while its markets offer ewe’s milk cheese.’
The DK Guide adds: “The town rose to prominence under the Romans and flourished throughout the Middle Ages as a centre of learning and the arts. It was a popular residence of Portugues kings but fell out of favour after Spain’s annexation of Portugal in 1580. Its influence waned further when the Jesuit university closed in the 18th century.” Today in the C21st, students once again throng the streets, joined by visitors to this UNESCO World Heritage Site.
So, we went! Évora is about an hour’s drive east of Lisbon; by noon the temperature had reached 39C and it was baking! We had rooms in the Pousada dos Lóios, a hotel converted from the old Monastery of St John the Evangelist, which had been founded in 1485. Today the hotel’s bedrooms are the old ‘cells’ of ‘Cónegas Regrantes’ – although my little suite suggested there was a little luxury permitted!
Our first lunch was in a small restaurant, Luar de Janeiro, somewhere in the maze of tiny streets below the hotel.
I am not a fan of Alentejo food, or most Portuguese food for that matter, but I had to try the little ham, but not its accompaniment of goat, cheese and garlic rice.
Near our hotel stood the Roman Temple, thought to have been built in the 2nd or 3rd century AD.
In daylight it’s a glorious reminder of the deep history evident on the European continent. By night it’s altogether different; more ethereal.
The nearby square has some marble sculpture. I thought this was interesting:
I didn’t find out its creator and wasn’t sure whether the crack splitting it in two was intentional or not!
Some of the shops nestling down Évora’s little narrow streets sell cork products, for the Alentejo region in Portugal is the world’s largest producer of cork; for example, 30 million corks for the wine industry, per day. Hats, bags, purses, waterproofs, those cork mats for the kitchen and even a cork postcard!
Cork trees cover some 7000 sq kms of Portugal. Harvesting cork is a skilled business; mature trees have their bark stripped off every ten years or so, leaving the exposed wood raw and red.
Most shops shut during the heat of the afternoon but the guide had highlighted a C16th church, the Igreja da Graça, on the top of which are ‘four muscular figures supporting globes. They are quaintly nicknamed Os Meninos’ (The Children). Despite the temperature, (Note 2) I had to go and have a look. The church is undergoing a major restoration and is covered in plastic sheeting. Fortunately, the authorities had stuck a photograph of what it looks like on the outside and I was able to identify Os Meninos; sort of ‘boys will be boys’?
You can make out the four old men, two left and two on the right
Later, back in the wonderfully cool hotel, we had dinner. I chose the ‘stewed peas and Alentejo tomatoes’ as a starter …. more out of curiosity than anything else, although when Nuno the waiter asked whether I wanted the poached egg with it, I was slightly nonplussed; I declined. However, I was completely gobsmacked to be served a bowl of lukewarm soup, complete with bits of pork!
‘Lost in Translation’
I am seriously not one to take photographs of what I am eating although this … took the biscuit! Their ‘orange pie’ for dessert was not a pie!
Beside the C15th church of São Francisco sits the Capela dos Ossos.
The largest and oldest ‘Chapel of Bones’ in Portugal, built in the first half of the C17th, is a space ‘that can only be understood within the context of the Catholic spirituality that originated it.’ The chapel holds the skeletal remains of some 5000 monks and others associated with the church … and has a rather strange invitation at its entrance: ‘Nos ossos que aqui estamos pelos vossos esperamos’ (‘we bones that are here await yours’)
I found it very, very odd, strangely mesmeric, these skulls and bones artistically laid out. I can imagine the chat between those who created it: ‘José, have you got a small skull, just need one to fill a hole?’ or ‘Carlos, do I place the leg bones in a fan shape, or shortest to longest?’ – just seeing them as pieces in some macabre display.
European walled cities have always held a fascination for me, be it St Malo in the northwestern corner of France, Dubrovnik in Croatia or Kotor in Montenegro. Carcassonne in southern France remains on my bucket list.
In Évora fragments remain of the inner Roman walls, whilst the C14th outer wall is very much in evidence, made in the 1640s into a major fortification.
Water was carried into the town by the aqueduct, built between 1531 and 1537.
Today it’s used by the local water company to pipe water into the town; some 9kms of the old aqueduct still survive. Finally, you remember that marble sculpture near the hotel? With the sunset behind it ….
…. it reminded me of the lines from the song ‘As Time Goes By’ by Louis Armstrong ……. ‘a kiss is just a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh, the fundamental things apply, as time goes by.’
Évora? Enchanting!
Richard 10th July 2026
Hove
Note 1 The Romans valued this land ‘beyond the Tagus’ – além Tejo – for its wheatfields; grain was exported all over their empire.
Note 2 Only ‘Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun’ wrote Sir Noel Coward (1899 – 1973)
postcards 