Last year around Christmastime, we put together a house-gift to ourselves. It’s not very fancy, in fact it starts with an empty pretzel container from Continente. Inside this container our numerous folded slips of paper. Written inside the fold is an activity in or around Braga – a place to visit, perhaps a lunch spot picked out (we’re much happier when we aren’t picking out a restaurant spur-of-the-moment). The sheets are taped shut (this isn’t a high tech operation), and on the outside of the paper there is general information: how long does it take, is it walking/bus ride/ride share, is there a meal involved, and does weather or season matter. We call this little plastic barrel our “Jar of Wonders”, and every once in awhile we draw until we get something that fits our day, and off we go! One of our earliest pulls was a few months ago, when we visited the Sé de Braga, a Roman Catholic Church that predates the founding of Portugal. From time to time, we are reminded of how very *old* the country we live in is

The civitas (roughly, city) Bracara Augusta was founded by the Romans in 16 BC and the Diocese of Braga dates from the 3rd century AD, being one of the oldest in the Iberian peninsula. In 1071 Bishop Pedro began building the cathedral (Sé) and it was consecrated while still unfinished in 1089. Building continued through he 13th century. The Kingdom of Portugal was officially recognized in 1179. And that’s enough history.

What makes the Sé so fascinating is that it is a gorgeous hodgepodge of architectural styles. The original 12th century-building was built in the Burgundian Romanesque style, but later construction added Gothic (chapels and entrance), Moorish, Manueline (main chapel) and Baroque (towers, chapels, and loads of interior decoration)elements.

Here is a collection of pictures we took as we wandered through, enjoying so many elements.

Throughout the interior are the remains of several important people, including D. Afonso, the son of King John I and what purports to be Saint Peter of Rates. (Modern science suggests that it’s actually the body of a child from the 9th century.)

There is an excellent museum upstairs, and most of the signage is in both English and Portuguese. There are a number of tours that include a visit to the Sé, and we highly recommend including this magnificent and beautiful historic site in your visit.

There are moments in life that get packaged into “A Tale” rather than just “a story”. You tell it practically the same way each time you share it, and you tend to share it a lot. Each new person you meet, they’re going to hear your Tales as part of the get-to-know-you process. Here is our tale of meeting our city for the first time.

We could roll back time reaaaaally far to get to the beginning of this thread; like all the way to our first inkling of moving. When we were kinda-sorta serious about moving to Portugal but no firm plans at all, one of the things we kept chewing on was when we were going to actually pull up stakes and go. A lot of that was “when can we afford it” and “when can we logistically manage it” and so on, but a thought began to percolate for me. We were moving to a new city, in a new country, knowing basically nothing about them. The culture would be different, the customs, the food, everything. So, how could we increase the chance that we’d like being there? And the answer I came up with was “go at Christmas time.” Not that Lisa and I are particular Christmas lovers, but you can’t ignore how the seasonal cheer ramps up. Downtown will be covered in lights. Music everywhere. People generally rolling friendliness saves with advantage. (Sorry, non-nerds.) Yeah, that seemed like the best way to stack the deck in our favor.

So a hundred dominoes falling later, we actually went to San Francisco for Thanksgiving in 2021 with portions of Lisa’s family, then caught our flight from SFO to Lisbon. We got to our first night airbnb, then into our apartment the next day. We were absolutely pooooped. Exhausted. But, we’d heard from the Braga American immigrants group that the municipal tree lighting festivity would be going on that night and the immigrants would grab a table at Café Vianna to catch the goings on. (To my fellow immigrants reading this in 2025 and beyond: yes, that’s right, the entire crowd of immigrants that night fit around a 10-top at Café Vianna. How times change, right?) It seemed like a good way to meet people and also just crack the ice on seeing what we’d got ourselves into. We left our apartment around 7 or so and made the 15-ish minute walk to downtown.

That’s how long it took me to fall in love with this place. 15 minutes.

Our old apartment was on Rua Dom Pedro V, which goes through a couple of quick name changes before becoming Avenida Central; don’t worry about the details if you don’t get this, all that matters is it was a straight line walk for us to end up at the fountain for the tree lighting. You hit the pedestrian area halfway there, and that’s when it started. Picturesque family scenes as the locals started gathering for the festivities. This was late 2021, remember, so things were juuuuust starting to loosen up in public spaces. They hadn’t even had the tree lighting the year prior, and attendance was relatively sparse but the people who were showing up seemed extra-excited to be reconnecting with their community. The air was crisp, the lights were on all up and down the pedestrian zone… it was, in a word, perfect. It was exactly what you’d want from the start of the holiday season. The gathering at the cafe was as warm a welcome as two new arrivals could hope for, and we’re friends with, I think, everybody we met that night.

The best part to me is that none of this is revisionist history. As we were walking back to our apartment at the end of the night we talked about what a great night it was, how much we loved the experience and the people that we met. Looking back, even knowing that we basically psyched ourselves out (picking the best possible time to “meet” our new home, going to festive occasions etc…) we still feel like it was a perfect first impression. And it seems to have worked, because here we are.

When we first heard that there was a museum of coaches in Lisbon, we were perplexed. First, it had to be explained (to John at least) that we were talking about transportation compartments pulled by horses, not athletic team leaders. Then, it had to be explained that they weren’t kidding and there actually is such a thing as a coach museum. And then we had to learn that it is, in fact, one of the more impressive buildings in the entire city, dedicated entirely to a coach museum. (Well, and miscellaneous sundries.) And finally, when we first encountered the National Coach Museum, we learned the hard way that it is closed on Mondays. Whoops.

As relayed in our first sojourn to Lisbon, we stumbled upon the building with more than a little mix of surprise and suspicion. It is a huge building, designed by Brazilian architect – and Pritzker Prize winner – Paulo Mendes da Rocha. We don’t claim any special architectural expertise, but clearly this was a big gun that they brought out for their… coach museum. Learning this also blew a hole in my ginned-up theory that the museum was originally something else, and was repurposed so as not to have a huge derelict on the waterfront. Nope! The government raised funds, worked through committees, the whole 9 yards… for the coach museum.

So, ok, I’m leaning pretty heavily into the “coach museum can ya believe it?? herp derp” attitude, but here’s the thing: it was actually pretty cool! The coach sets date back several hundred years and are kept in fantastic condition. (There has to be extensive restoration to look this good, but I’m caring less and less about that as the years go by.) There are coaches that were crafted by the Portuguese, but some of the finest examples are French carriages that arrived here as the transportation for various princesses that were marrying into the Portuguese royal family. Still, Paris to Lisbon in horse-drawn carriage? Wooooof.

After walking the wildly impressive first hall, the second hall with its nearly uniform small, black carriages as engines were visible on the horizon just didn’t hold the same pizzazz. Car aficionados would probably get a kick out of it as a walk through of the early evolutionary stages of automobiles, but otherwise it was kind of a dud. Still, the first main hall with it’s twenty-ish examples from several centuries was, and I still can’t quite believe I’m saying this, entirely worth the visit. It’s great.

We have remarked before (probably here, certainly in conversation) that we have been much more thorough in our exploration of the greater European continent than we have been of our adopted home country. We’ve dug into the capitals of England, France, Italy, even Greece… more than we have the fair city of Lisbon. That all changed recently, when personal business required us to visit the U.S. Embassy in Portugal, located iiiiinnn…. that’s right, Lisbon. Since we had to make the effort to get there anyway, we decided to stretch the trip out a few days and actually poke around a bit. See the sights, that sort of thing. We consulted the oracles (aka our friends) to prioritize our options, then hit the road.

We’ve actually done a little bit of touristing in Lisbon before, but that trip was short on actual experiences and long on “peering through the locked gate” experiences. This time we double checked that thing we wanted to see were open on the days that we wanted to see them, the way real people do it. Our first item up for bid was the Museu Nacional do Azulejo, aka “the tile museum” to us English-speaking heathens. (That’s extra clever if you’ve read about the origins of the word “heathen“.) I suspect this is common knowledge but just in case: the Portuguese have a deep cultural appreciation for decorative ceramic tile that goes back hundreds of years. They aren’t unique in this but they are particularly well known for it. Decorative tile (“azulejo“) is to Portuguese culture what marble statues are to Italian. Thus it is hardly surprising that there is an intense gallery in the capital city dedicated to outstanding examples of this craft, both from a technical standpoint as well as examples of cultural significance.

While there are numerous exhibits within the converted convent, we felt you could broadly think of the entire museum on a continuum, with “historically significant” on one end and “just plain beautiful” on the other. The earliest examples go back to the mid-1400s but, kind of unsurprisingly if you stop to think about it, they aren’t really the peak of the craft. It’s fascinating to see how far back this art form goes, but the techniques have advanced so far since then, as has the evolution of technique in craftsmanship, that the early examples are just kind of plain looking out of context. (NOT saying they aren’t worth the examination, just that… well, if you were tiling your house tomorrow, you probably aren’t going for reclaimed tiles from 1491 unless you’re a history buff.) By the time you get to the samples of the last few decades there are some truly spectacular works of art.

Click on the images below to see just a few of the exhibitions in more detail. Which, alas, is about as good as it can get for you for the near future, as the museum closed for renovation at the beginning of November with an anticipated re-opening in June of 2026. Fingers crossed!

Harvesting cork is a truly ancient practice as archaeologists suggest that the Iberians used cork as early as 3,000 BC. In the 18th century cork production became an organized industry and by the 19th century cork began to be the essential component in the sealing of wine bottles. Unsurprisingly, the demand for cork increased rapidly. Today, Portugal is the world’s leading producer of cork, accounting for around 50% of global cork production and home to approximately 730,000 hectares (acres) of cork oak forests.

Cork comes from the bark of a particular species of oak tree, Quercus Suber, a cousin to the oak trees used for barrel aging wine. Cork is harvested in a process that peels the bark rather than cutting the tree down. Cork trees can live for more than 200 years, and their bark harvested every 9 to 12 years. This process not only allows for a renewable supply but also helps the trees absorb more CO₂ making cork a carbon-negative material.

There are two cork trees “vying” for the title of oldest.

• The first is in Courant d’Huche in the Landes region of SW France is about 16m in height with a girth of 5m. Experts claim it was planted c1600, making it 400-425 years old.
• The other is the so-called Whistler Tree at Águas de Moura, south of Lisbon. It was planted in 1783, the year that the United States and Great Britain signed the Treaty of Paris, ending the Revolutionary War, making it 242 years old. (Our post image is of the Whistler Tree, so named because of the 100s of birds that inhabit its branches._

Cork oak was one of the first protected trees in the world. This status dates back to at least 1546, when Portugal’s King John III forbade it from being cut down. While the trees are all over Portugal, it is predominantly found in the Alentejo where it thrives on high temperatures and water scarcity. It is a significant habitat and food source for dozens of wild and domesticated animal species.

Cork has many desirable qualities:

• Lightweight and buoyant
• Water-resistant
• Fire-retardant
• Hypoallergenic
• Biodegradable and recyclable
• Durable and flexible

Cork is used for more than wine bottles. It is suitable for acoustic and thermal insulation in house walls, floors, ceilings, and facades. It is used to make vinyl record slipmats, due to its ability to not attract dust. Sheets of cork make bulletin boards as well as floor and wall tiles. It is used in shoes to improve climate control and comfort and as an alternative to leather in handbags, wallets, and other fashion items.

And now you know!

Hiding out in Vila do Conde was hardly a chore, but being away from home always presents challenges one way or another. For example, since we’d never been here before we didn’t have any notions of where we might want to eat. We ended up eating out a lot during our visit to Vila do Conde . . . which makes sense since a lunch was the First Cause. Plus, the place we were staying, while nice, had no amenities related to “long stay” or residential guests, so we weren’t having meals in our room. While nothing was quite like Occulto, we have stories and even recommendations!

Our lunch get-together was at Europa, which is just across the street from the beach, making it an excellent place to stop in when spending a day in and around the sand. With an airy outdoor (covered) area and gorgeous inner setting with a full bar, they attract a wide variety of people. Good prices and a varied menu only add to the positives. Service was poor — we waited ages for our meal and basically had to flag down people to order dessert and more drinks — which detracts from an otherwise pretty good meal.

Our dinner was at the main hotel restaurant, Mosteiro. Hotel restaurants can be hit or miss — lots of text telling you how great they are, but the execution can be lacking. Not so in this case. They chose to emphasize traditional Portuguese cuisine with some interesting additions not specific to the north. We started with the couvert: three types of bread (corn, rye, and seeded) accompanied by olive oil and butter and codfish fritters. All were great, but the fritters were pretty much the best we’ve had since we arrived. Starter options include Breaded Wild Shrimp with Almonds, Eggs with Smoked Ham, Asparagus and Wild Mushrooms, Stewed Broad Beans with Chorizo, and Goat Cheese Puffs with Pumpkin Jam. We tried the latter and were, again, deeply happy with the combination of savory and sweet (pumpkin jam is a big thing here, and we love it). Main dishes varied between fish (such as lobster rice or grilled sea bass) and meats (such as beef entrecote, roast goat, or rack of lamb). We shared the Black Pork “Secretos” — a kind of meat found here in Portugal — and were thrilled by the succulent meat, cooked tenderly, accompanied by rice. We had no room for dessert, but they offer a nice selection that will please almost everyone. This hotel understands that guests may be there for several meals and does a good job of offering variety.

A late lunch/ early dinner was at Romando, an exquisite sushi place right next to the river. The odd hour meant the “kitchen” was closed, as in, no hot/cooked food was available. We shrugged and said, ok, and ordered several rolls and a mixed plate of nigiri. It came promptly, along with a lovely chat with the manager (also serving) about the food and its origins. Much like the surprise of sushi in Evora, we had a grand time. Lightly rice-wine-flavored rice held up superbly fresh fish.

Our final dinner was at Concerto. We were admittedly flailing a bit for options at this point, but poking at reviews and maps in the area led us to this sort-of fusion French Portuguese restaurant and we figured if nothing else it could make for a delightful story. Turns out, it also made for a great meal! As far as we can tell Concerto is a passion project of French immigrants who came to rest in Vila do Conde and are making a go of a restaurant. We started there with a unique deconstructed burrata; the burrata was creamed and mixed with a tomato reduction and pesto, and served up with fresh flatbread. It was unusual and super tasty. We ended up sharing an entree of a …er,… sort of a beef bourguignon confit? thing? A little hard to describe, but for all that it didn’t look like a classic bourguignon the meat was fall-apart tender and just as flavorful as you’d expect. As much as we do enjoy “classic” Portuguese restaurants, breaking up a run of the usual fare is always welcome, and Concerto fit the bill perfectly.

We don’t have a lot of hard and fast rules in our marriage, but we have many moderately set guidelines, and one of these is that if our feet aren’t nailed down there’s no reason to suffer through the worst heat, at least not without some reprieve. A few weeks back the temperatures were set to hit the mid to high 30s, maybe even touching the 40s, and stay there for a long stretch. Not at all related, the daughter of some very old and dear friends – a young woman in her 20s about whom we clearly remember talking to the parents about preparing to have their first baby(!) – was in Portugal for a few weeks on a deep-dive course in aspects of archaeology. She was in Vila do Conde and maybe we’d like to drop in for lunch and a friendly pair of faces? It sounded great. Then, Lisa says to me all sweet and innocently “did you know that temperatures in Vila do Conde this week are in the low 20s?”

And thus, very quickly, our lunch date turned into three days’ refuge from the sun.

We “got our car out of the garage” (we don’t own a car, as little as we need one it’s far cheaper just to rent one when we want) and made for the coast. Vila do Conde is situated on the coast at the mouth of a river. We’d never been there before but people we know had said they had enjoyed it. The vibe there is definitely more touristy than Braga, but for being an extended suburb of Porto (the light rail makes it out there, which surprised us) but still far quieter than Porto proper, thank the gods. Lisa arranged our lodging which, because we had a hankering for a pool and maybe some spa time, ended up being the lovely Lince Santa Clara. It was, oddly enough, the second converted home of a holy order that we’d stayed in here in Portugal, and the digs were impressive. Stone construction, vaulted ceilings, heavily ornamented… it’s a hoot, really, so long as you don’t dwell on how the original holy order accumulated the power and wealth for digs like this. (sigh…)

Most importantly, by the time we hit town we could kill the A/C in the car and roll down the windows, taking in the gorgeous breezes. Our first order of business was to find our visitor coming out of her accommodation – we had expected to be taking her and her roommate to lunch but the roomie was still asleep… ah, youth. We left the car parked and walked in a couple of different directions (heh) before getting ourselves pointed towards a nice row of restaurants including Europa, which was our target. Our friend liked the place and told us a just adorable story about how her friends all figured out that going in on a jug of sangria was a cheaper buzz than just ordering drinks on their own. We say again, “ah, youth.” (And before our friends blow gaskets, she told the story about what “they” do, she apparently isn’t much for drinking in public.) It was a nice time, and we caught up on what she had been studying, which turned out to be restoring and preserving archaeological artifacts. When I was in college it never would have occurred to me that this was a thing, so good on her.

After a nice afternoon playing catch up, we made our way to the hotel and got checked in. The plan for the day was just to check out the facility in general and then make for their restaurant, Occulto.

There is a fun story behind the restaurant’s name, which translates to “hidden”. The hotel is a fairly recent renovation (2024) and while doing some foundation work, they found an entire level that was not shown or referred to in any plan or document. Thus, a superbly beautiful vaulted space became a restaurant that has already earned a Michelin star. Don’t worry, if you forget this story when you’re there you will be reminded several times. They aren’t trying to be pedantic; everybody is just eager to share an admittedly cool story.

The menu is quite simple, offering only two tasting menus: Flora (8 moments, vegetarian) and Imersão (“Immersion”) (option of 9 or 12 moments) with an optional wine pairing, each moment is tied to local and seasonal products. “Moments”, by the way, seems to be Portuguese parlance for the courses of a tasting menu. It seemed an amusing affectation the first time we heard it, but it’s come up at several restaurants now so “moments” are in.

It’s tricky to describe our meal, other than outstanding.

The Imersão is based on fish and seafood, mostly sourced from the fishing community of Vila do Conde, and our menu was . . . crab, goose barnacles, chawanamushi, horse mackeral & mussels, codfish & green tomatoes, hake & zucchini, red prawn & sea urchin, monkfish & cauliflower, and “pao de lo” with nectarines. The first three moments and the final mignardises and coffee, are served in a comfortable seating area facing the kitchen, with the chef explaining the source and inspiration for each. Once in the intimate dining room a cart with slow-fermented bread from a local bakery and butter from Marinhas arrive to whet your appetite. We both agree that the second moment of goose barnacles with smoked green asparagus was one of the best things we’ve ever put in our mouth. (Lisa still remembers it fondly.) While we didn’t love every course, we enjoyed the several hours we spent wending our way through the local seafood.

Dinner time! You might have gotten the impression from our last few posts that we didn’t eat while we were in Évora; you probably didn’t, but who are we to judge? Actually we just got so caught up in talking about the other bits of our trip that the posts were feeling kinda long as they were. So, instead, let’s just have a conversation here at the end about eating in this ancient city. Like a lot of smallish cities that have outsized tourism footprints, the dining options felt abundant compared to the overall scale of the place. We ended up having an interesting range of meals. Three of them were at places we’d spent time choosing ahead of time, while one was a surprise. One was meh, and we even had a disappointment. Neither of those was the surprise place (so… also surprise?); let’s ta;lk about it.

Our first night we went into town to sample the seasonal menu at Restaurante Hibrido. They offer modern cuisine based on traditional Portuguese dishes with a strong focus on provenance and local, small-scale, producers. There is also an emphasis on sustainability, making use of every bit of the food they purchase for their small (five table) establishment.

It was superb.

They recommend one of two options, five or seven moments (the new terms for courses), although you can order a la carte. Since Lisa doesn’t usually trust tasting menus on a first visit, we didn’t do the moments.

Our first courses were a kind of salad — Lisa’s of cured fish (a kind of river Sturgeon if I interpreted correctly) with cucumber and daikon flavored with oregano and lime. The fish was silky and not overly smoky. John tried a slightly heavier dish of beef tongue from a local producer of a strain of Waygu cattle. (Our first experience with tongue, truth be told.) While the beef itself was fine, we found the garlic creme and mustard to be too strongly flavored — the creme would have been enough. Our mains were Alentejo pork (justifiably an excellent product) and Carne de Caca (game meat). The pork had a feel of northern France with its accompanying sausage and cabbage. The hollandaise sauce was rich, but lifted the elements of the dish to a new level and had John surreptitiously wiping the plate clean with a bit of bread. Lisa’s game dish came with roasted beets and a medley of asparagus and baby greens. The meat’s richness was perfectly balanced by the vegetables and it sang on the tongue. Dessert was a local favorite: Enxovalhada, a sourdough cake with custard alongside homemade ice cream. Just the right sweet to end a fabulous dinner.

Our server spoke excellent English, a bonus because she was able to clearly discuss what each dish was like and where the ingredients came from. She knew every bottle in the (small but excellent) wine list and was able to help us decide how to proceed. The incredibly small kitchen perfectly paced the timing of the plates, giving us time to enjoy each and not rushing to get the next plate in front of us.

We’ll go back to Evora just to visit Hibrido again!

Rua de Serpa Pinto 34
Évora, PT 7000-537

Our second meal was a surprise in all the good ways.

It was lunch the next day and we didn’t have specific plans. Lisa had a craving for fish, so we cast around and settled on Sushi Art, just across one of the main thoroughfares from Old Town, tucked around an odd corner. Frankly, we chose it because they were open at noon, and we were hungry.

Of course we were the first to arrive, and politely greeted the chefs behind the counter. They were still preparing for service, but were happy to show us to a table. The place is very ritzy in a “we’re a late night drinking and eating club” kind of way. (Lots of mirrors and glitzy photographs.) This made us even more nervous, but were hungry, the day was hot, and we figured it couldn’t be as bad as that place in London, right?

(Hot tip, nothing will ever be as bad as the place in London. It is a VERY low bar to set.)

While we usually order individual dishes, it looked like Sushi Art leaned heavily into Combination plates and we decided to go with a 40 piece plate. Plus gyoza. (Because, gyoza of course)

The gyoza arrived, hot . . . and seemed fresh made, not from frozen. Intriguing, and a very good sign. Oh, and they were so good we almost burned our tongues scarfing them down. The chicken was tender, the flavoring exactly right, and they were perfectly crisped without being oily. Perfection.

Not much later the sushi arrived and it was a feast for the eyes. Silky textures, rich flavor, and very, very fresh. Each piece was perfectly rolled, and exactly the same in proportions. The rice was seasoned perfectly. We were almost indecent in our speed and enjoyment. It was so good!

We’d eat there again, absolutely.

Tv. de Chartres 8
7000-749 Évora

The third place we ate was dinner at DegustAR, in the heart of the historic center in the building of the sixteenth-century Sepulveda Palace (now a hotel). The decor is elegant, with (seemingly original to the structure) low, white vaulted ceilings offset beautifully by a light woods, plenty of glass, and splashes of muted colors. It had all the hallmarks of a special meal.

Instead, it was . . . meh.

Plastic woven mats and flowers in vases struck a decidedly cheap note. The wine list was very long (a small binders’ worth) and expensive (US dining level), even for a tourist-focused place in a tourist town.

The menu’s focus is on the cuisine of Alentejo. John had the pork loin, described as seasoned with spices and Portel honey, alongside an asparagus porridge and orange marmalade. Lisa had the sea bass with shrimp rice and coriander. Both were . . . fine. Decently cooked, but not perfectly (a little overdone) and the seasoning was on the bland side. It felt like the chef had called in sick and the new guy had to step in, which is unexpected for a Saturday night. Not enough to send it back, but not a great experience. Service was slow, particularly when the place was mostly empty. The wine arrived well after the couvert, water was never refreshed, and Lisa’s wine glass stayed empty well after the main had been served. (In retrospect, there were no locals amoing the cientele, a very bad sign.)

Really, the couvert (four kinds of local bread — raisin, corn, wholemeal, and a sourdough — with a goat’s milk butter and a fish paté) was the tastiest dish.

We were positively not interested in trying anything else (like dessert), particularly at the cost.

Rua Cândido dos Reis 72
7000-782 Évora, Portugal

We come, a bit sadly, to our final meal of the trip and if you’ve been keeping track, you’ll know how this one is going to go. (Really? you might ask. After what you said about the other place, we’re almost scared.)

Our highlight meal was reserved at DiCasa, an Italian place literally up against the wall surrounding the historic center. Described as simple but refined, we were looking forward to something non-regional.

The first problem was that it was anything but refined in looks; it was an upscale pizza joint. It was also not air-conditioned. (The first dining place we’d been to in evora that wasn’t.) The clientele were locals, good sign, but they were there for the wood over fired thin crust pizza and cheap beer. The young man solo dining at the table behind us played his social media videos the entire time he was there, which set a kind of tone. As well, the wine offerings were solely Italian and the one Lisa tried was thin and vinegary (fortunately, just a glass).

That said, the pasta itself was perfect. Clearly fresh made and perfectly prepared. Lisa had a simple linguine with shrimp and the shellfish were tender and sweet. John’s spaghetti bolognese was also excellent. Service was friendly, fast, and accurate. The environment made us leave without interest in having anything else, but we’d go back for the pasta, but probably when the weather was much cooler.

Rua do Muro 4
7000-602 Évora, Portugal

(all pictures are from the interwebz. We don’t take pictures of our meals.)

We love living in Portugal; we really, really do. One thing we’re still getting used to is just how blasted hot it can get. (Yes, yes, people from Texas, it’s not as bad as the worst place on Earth…) We chose the north of Portugal for a reason. And yet, the alure of Évora and similar attractions draws us south every now and again for the cultural enrichment and, apparently, for the lovely crisp that we achieve under the broiler. Anyway. On our last full day we have a plan to catch whatever we missed on the first two days. We actually caught everything we wanted to see in the city environs, so we had another jaunt into the countryside on tap.

Our early morning plan had been a rousing (a ha ha ha… ahem) success so the alarm was once again set for 6:30 in the morning. Ah, vacation. Still, we were fed and showered and out the door while temps were barely in the 70s; sold! Our first location was to recover an aborted attempt to see the Almendres Cromlech. I kinda breezed past the difficulties on day 1. The drive to the Almendres Cromlech ended with 2km or so of a truly terrible dirt road. Clearly subject to wash outs and with no municipality much interested in keeping it up (it leads to exactly one place with no commercial purpose), we ended driving slower and slower to survive the potholes and crevices, eventually moving slow enough that bicycles might have been faster. To top it off, we reached a point where a barrier had been erected indicating that the road ahead was worse. We were once sent into gales of hysterical laughter (emphasis on hysteria) on a winding road in Ireland that had been turning my hair gray at a record pace when we suddenly encountered a sign warning “curves ahead”; how much worse was it about to be??? This sign was the same thing. We had no idea how close we were to the cromlech, and the heat had reached the 90s at that point, so we punted.

Well, the road wasn’t any better this time, but when we reached that barrier it was still only like 7:30 and the weather was warm-ing but still comfy. We pulled off to the side and started walking a gradually ascending path with intermittent shade. It was probably another km+, which definitely would have stunk to pull off two days earlier in sweltering heat. This day, it actually was a pleasant, almost romantic stroll. Cork trees on either side of the path and occasional clusters of grazing livestock, birdsong, wildflowers… it was nice. It also put us in a more contemplative state of mind, perfect for what we arrived to.

The Almendres Cromlech is hard to capture in a single photo, at least without a drone. It’s 90+ stones set into two circles (plus odd clusters), arranged on a hillside slope. Archaeologists have been able (don’t ask me how) to determine that the two circles were very precisely arranged, although over the thousands of years they’ve drifted into a more scattered appearance, although still incredibly impressive. And, like most of these sites we’ve ever visited, it aligned to the sun’s path at the solstice. Given that we were there in early June it was a pretty good time to see this “in action.”

The ringed path you see marked out around the perimeter is part of an interesting conservation project. Apparently the frequent visitors through the years who tromped all throughout the rings actually killed off the grass and flowers and such within the area, plant life that was apparently keeping the soil in place. Losing the vegetation increased the washed away soil, meaning the stones were increasing danger of falling over. So, appropriate plants were seeded all throughout the space and signs and light barriers put in place encouraging visitors to keep to the outside path. Fair enough; you can still get a good look at everything.

Another site we visited that absolutely got up my nose was the Dolmen-Chapel of São Brissos, so called because Christians in the area however long ago took an ancient dolmen site (most likely a tomb), and encased it in plaster and made it a chapel. Take a look and you’ll start to see where the completely intact dolmen has been… appropriated.

With a morning of driving and exploration behind us we retreated back to our home base for another arduous day of… let me check my notes… splashing in a pool and laying in the shade reading. I mean, it was a vacation, right? That was it for our trip and quite a success it was. The next morning we just hit the road for home. We like these short trips to new places when we can manage them – if it doesn’t really enchant us, well, we can catch the highlights and be done with it. If we love it, we can always come back. Évora definitely made the cut for a return visit, albeit (hopefully) in the early Spring or late Fall, when we’re less likely to melt.

On our first day in the environs of Évora we were hitting up ancient stone arrangements that were by and large out in the middle of nowhere. We still had more sites that we wanted to see, but to make sure that we didn’t run out of gas before checking off some key items we decided to focus our second day of tourism on the city itself. We’d save anything that we missed from either day as a good third day for the trip and this way minimize the chance that we’d miss out on “can’t miss” attractions. “Hey guys, you were in Évora, how did you like the chapel of bones?” “Oh, um, we didn’t make it?” That’s never a fun conversation. The heat was going to stay in the high-90s for our entire visit so there was never any serious thought to skipping the day and staying in the shade – might as well have stayed home at that point. Instead, we were up early, again (ugh), and into town.

John, did you just say “chapel of bones?” Why yes, yes I did! One of the most-remarked sights to see in all of Évora is the “Capela dos Ossos” – literally “Chapel of Bones”. Said chapel is lined with human bones, the remains of people who by and large had hoped for just this honor. Seriously, it was mostly the Franciscan monks who had dibs and anyone else in town had to play their cards just right in order to spend eternity stacked up like cordwood. I may kid, but they were (ahem) deadly serious about this stuff abck in the day; it was a tremendous honor to be so interred.

Well, it was an honor except for two people, whose mummified remains are still on display to this day. As the story goes, a man and his son treated their wife/mother quite badly for years. The mother cursed them both on her death bed, saying more-or-less that y’all will neither touch sky nor earth, reaching neither heaven nor hell. Now, why this lady’s curse carried any weight with the monks we do not know, but carry weight it did, and for hundreds of years the increasingly mummified bodies of father and son were kept suspended in the chapel. They only took them down in 2021!! And even still, to this day, they are displayed in glass cases, still not being interred. We can only hope to achieve such aggrieved cursing someday.

Another key location is the “Temple of Diana”, although as Roman ruins go it’s only exciting if you’re grading on a bit of a curve. (Yes, we are incredibly aware of what a privileged life we’re leading that we can stack rank ancient Roman ruins. Nevertheless, once you’ve been to Paestum it’s not going to stun you into insensibility merely to encounter a few upright columns.) Plus, it turns out that nobody really called it “that “the Temple of Diana” until a 17^th century monk made up a legend whole cloth and it took hold. The site was actually dedicated to the cult of Augustus around the 1^st century CE. Still, it’s neat to see something like that standing in the middle of the town square in southern Portugal.

There were numerous smaller pleasures, including the aqueduct that runs into the city which we also encountered miles away the day before. Speaking only for myself, it’s one thing to understand what aqueducts are in an academic sense and entirely another to realize just what a massive undertaking they were. Thousands of years ago they were building miles and miles of arching stone paths, straight as an arrow, to bring water to where they wanted it. (The featured map at the top of this post is a section of the aqueduct running through the surrounding fields.) And to top it off the center of town, the “old city” as it were, is surrounded by thirty-foot-high stone walls that are in magnificent shape, whether through rugged longevity or careful maintenance I cannot say. It was a great, hot, day, with more still to come.