Lisbon Day 1

 On Thursday morning, we woke up early, had breakfast and then got a taxi to the train station where we rode the train for a little less than 2 hours to Lisbon. The train was comfortable and easy enough. After arriving in Lisbon we took a taxi to our hotel. Our hotel is in another converted convent but this one is pretty new. We dropped our bags and went out for food in the neighborhood. We had pretty good pizza and pasta at an Italian restaurant. After settling into the hotel, we met our tour guide for the day Paula. Paula took us to several neighborhoods around Lisbon. Because Lisbon is SO hilly, we took cabs in a few places to go up hill but mostly walked downhill. We started with the church connected to our hotel. It had suffered a fire in the 1950’s and was pretty ornate before then but when they renovated, they decided to leave the damage to the church visible to honor the fire and also to acknowledge the pogrom that had happened there in the early16th century as part of the inquisition. It was interesting to see a church in that condition intentionally. 

From there we took a taxi to a neighborhood that has the Church of Saint Rogue, which is a Jesuit church. This church was lovely and more of what you’d expect. There was some really intricate mosaics that looked painted. We then went to the Praça do Comercio which is near the water and had a very large statue of King John I. We then got in another cab to go to the top of a hill where the original castle (Castle of Saint George) was. There is still some ruins there and an active dig site. The views of the city were great from there and there were several peacocks just hanging around. We then walked down through several neighborhoods that are preparing for the festival of St Anthony that happens in June. It seems like the city transforms to honor him. We walked back to our hotel and said goodbye to Paula. 

For dinner, we took the subway one stop up hill to a restaurant that’s called Mini Bar. It’s a speak easy style restaurant created by a very famous Portugués chef Jose Avillez. The food was very good and creative in a fun way. We had prawn ceviche, really good sourdough bread, Caesar salad. I had a pork katsu sandwich with sweet potato chips and mom had a steak. We decided to find gelato on the way home and we found an Italian style gelato that was really good. Great start to our time here.

Evora Day 2

 Wednesday morning, we had breakfast at our hotel before our guide, Jorge (pronounced like George) picked us up for the day Jorge drove us into town so we could see the church of San Francisco and where the palace once stood. The church was gorgeous and it was a mix of styles including moorish. Next to the church is the chapel of bones. The chapel of bones was built in the 16th century by monks using very old bones from the many cemeteries that were in Evora. It wasn’t super creepy to me since the bones were so old and there is so much distance between us and when the bodies were alive. You can see that the chapel was meticulously built and it was to show that in the end we all end up the same way. After the chapel, Jorge took us to see ruins of a Roman temple and the Cathedral. The cathedral is gorgeous and had a great cloister area. Jorge showed us different additions they made to the cathedral in order to try to win favor with the Pope. The tile work in churches here is so great and what sets these churches apart from the ones we saw in Italy. 

After the cathedral, Jorge took us into a little town where we could meet a rug designer and see them embroider rugs. He described the stitch as a double cross stitch and we watched a woman restore an old rug. The rugs were beautiful and all handmade. After, we went to a winery that has vineyards, olive groves and walnut groves. Their logo is inspired by the rugs we saw in the town before. It’s also a bit of a wildlife sanctuary. We got a jeep tour of the property and then went to a hunting lodge (that’s been renovated) for lunch and a wine tasting. We got to taste different walnuts as well. After lunch, we got to go to a cork factory. It was interesting to drive into an industrial park and see so many giant piles of cork. This factory does a lot of the initial processing cutting down the bark and cork into planks for other companies. They did some finished goods as well. 

After the cork factory we went back into Evora for some shopping then back to the hotel before dinner. For dinner we went to a well known small restaurant (reservation only) that just does a chefs tasting menu each night. We had all kinds of food we might not have chosen for ourselves. It was all cooked really well. I couldn’t get into the turkey giblets but I did try. We had a tongue sandwich that was really good but they wouldn’t tell us what it was until after we ate it. It was an interesting experience. 

On the train to Lisbon this morning, our last stop in Portugal. 

Evora Day 1

 On Tuesday morning, we woke up and had breakfast at the hotel and then explored the gardens a bit before packing up to leave. The gardens were beautiful but I found the map hard to navigate and I was looking for fountains that were more 3 dimensional than what was actually there. After checking out of our hotel, our driver picked us up to head to Evora which is about a 3 hour drive. We stopped once to use the bathroom and the rest stop was so civilized and organized.

Our hotel in Evora is a little outside the city and is a former convent from the 15th century. It’s beautiful and our room is pretty big. We had to walk through the cloisters to get to our room (and pass a lot of religious art). After settling in briefly we took an uber to our food tour meeting point and wandered a little before meeting our guide Marcus. 

Marcus took us into a wine shop to start and a few cafes before ending in a bakery. We had cheese and olive oil, bifana (but different than what we had in Porto), a pork dish with picked vegetables covered in French fries, scrambled eggs with bacon, and finally a local conventual tart. It was more cakey than custardy. He also took us into a store that sold olive oil, wine and liquor. We had a cherry liquor in a little chocolate cup. We had already had 2 wines and a beer so I had to spill some liquor out. It was so hot in the town, my fan was nearly useless. Today is supposed to be slightly hotter (high of 99) but hopefully the heat breaks soon. We get a tour of Evora today so we will get to know the city better.