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.
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