March 14, 2025
Even though we went to sleep late, we had to get up early to embark on our final day trip in Portugal. We chose to visit a town called Évora.
Évora has a long history going back to Roman times, and that was one of the reasons we wanted to go. Also, we had a strong recommendation from Harriet and Shelly, who had been there a couple of years ago.
After taking a modern electric tram, and a high speed train, we found ourselves in Évora by about 10:30am.
We walked about 20 minutes from the station to the centre square. Here’s a couple of things we saw along the way:
The centre square was left over from the Roman times. There were 8 different roads fanning out from this central location.
We walked to the temple of Diana first and read about these ruins. We looked at the view of the surrounding area from the “acropolis” of the town.
We then headed directly through the winding streets to our second priority, which was the Chapel of Bones. I had never heard of this before. The chapel inside walls and pillars are literally made and decorated with bones. We had an interesting conversation with Teva about how we felt about it vs. what the people then had intended by building the chapel out of bones.
With further research we found out this bone temple is the oldest in Portugal, but it is not the only one. Further, there are other similar chapels elsewhere in Europe. I have to admit, I had some trouble wrapping my head around this concept. Mostly because, in Judaism, there are many rules about the treatment of human remains, and this was counter to those teachings.
There were several tours with guides coming into the chapel; I overheard one of the guides talking about how this chapel was a place for quiet contemplation. Having this huge group of people talking was definitely not conducive to any meditation. Also, there was a family who was on a loud video call in the middle of the chapel, trying to share the visuals of the chapel.
This is a poem which was in the Chapel:
Where are you going in such a hurry, traveler?
Pause…do not advance your travel.
You have no greater concern than this one:
That which is now before your eyes.
Recall how many have passed from this world,
Reflect on your similar end.
There is good reason to do so;
If only all did the same.
Ponder, you so influenced by fate,
Among the many concerns of the world,
So little do you reflect on death.
If by chance you glance at this place,
Stop … for the sake of your journey,
The longer you pause, the further on your journey you will be.
The chapel of bones was within another museum, so we went through it as well, seeing yet another ornately decorated cathedral covered in beautiful devotional oil paintings, figures, intricate carvings and archways covered in gold leaf and beautiful Azulejos (traditional Portuguese tiles). This cathedral was dedicated by the followers of St Francis, who originally came from the Galicia Region of northern Spain.
On our way back to the temple of Diana, we came across a very interesting building that Teva had spotted down an alleyway. We were trying to figure out what it was, when another couple had done the same thing. Turns out they are from Canada and have spent four months every year in Portugal for the past five years. Funnily enough, their son lives within two blocks of our house in Bowmanville. This is their first time in Évora. They were also wondering what the building was. I went close up to do some reconnaissance and found out it was owned by the military, and was not open to the public.
We had a fantastic lunch experience in the Mercado building even though most of the vendors were closed for the day. There were a couple of restaurants open, including one called Pizza No Mercado. We got the burrata starter which was amazing. The pizzas were also incredible!
While we were eating lunch, I heard some music coming from inside the Mercado building. It was three men, sitting at a table in the foodcourt playing music. One of them had a ukulele and another had a guitar.
Here is small clandestine video I took (turn up the volume to hear it as I was a bit far away)
They also sang a song that David Broza translated into Hebrew Called “Kmo sh’at” or “Como Tu” in Spanish – not sure if they were singing in Spanish or Portuguese.
We wanted to see the Roman baths but they were closed for restoration, so we went to the Évora Museum next to the temple of Diana. There was a decent sized exhibit of archaeological artifacts from the area around Evora. Created in 1915, it traces Évora’s long history and culture, and was officially dedicated to Frei Manuel do Cenáculo in 2017. Frei Manuel do Cenáculo was an 18th-century monk who became the bishop of Évora and collected many of the archaeological pieces of the collection, which also includes art from extinct convents and churches.
There were a wide variety of artifacts, from many different eras. The amount of detail on these sculptures is amazing.
Also what was interesting were a series of “faked” Roman gravestone artifacts from the 15th century. They were created to detail a false and inflated history of Évora to generate more interest in the area, possibly bringing business in from far way.
On the second floor was an extensive exhibit of devotional oil paintings from different chapels and cathedrals. Many were actually painted by Friar Manuel Cenáculo, Archbishop of Évora.
One of the highlights of this museum for me was an exhibition of some of the work submitted in the 25th International Youth Art Meeting.
From the museum plaque:
“Students of Art Schools from Albania, Germany, Bulgaria, Hong Kong, China, Croatia, Egypt, Slovakia, Slovenia, the Russian Federation, Hungary, India, Israel, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Turkey and Ukraine, with ages between 7 and 18 years old, participated in the contest phase of this 25th International Meetings of Youth Art, whose theme is “The wondrous sea depth”.
From this phase there was a selection of the best collection that defined the representations to be present in the activities to draw and paint Évora, in open studios in the city streets, which is intended to be a day dedicated to the Frei Manuel do Cenáculo National Museum, in an initiative titled “One day at the Museum”, activity that began in 2022.
This exhibition is divided in two parts: in the larger room you shall see works of the “One day at the Museum” initiative, in which the exhibitors glossed the artwork of this institution; in the smaller room the prizewinners of this year’s Contest who come from Portugal, Serbia and Hong Kong.”
Here are some of the submissions from the “One day at the museum category.” Most of these students were around 14 years old.
We really enjoyed the vibe of Évora. We didn’t feel pressure to see everything in one day, but I can see how you could easily spend a relaxing couple of days here taking in all of the sights.
While in Évora, Aubrey and I both bought a Portuguese version of Birkenstocks. They were mostly made of cork, and I chose a pair with a traditional Azulejos pattern on them.
The gentlemen who owned the store told us that Birkenstock had actually opened a factory in Portugal and was producing sandals with all Portuguese cork. We also bought a few kinds of tinned fish that Portugal is famous for. I forgot to take a photo at the store, but here is a photo from the store in the airport. One of their trademark things for their bigger stores seem to be a brightly coloured ferris wheel of tinned fish 🙂 They also have the largest selection of tinned fish varieties and one store outside of Portugal, located in Times Square, NYC. Here is their website: https://portuguesesardine.us
As we were running for the train out of Évora, we saw this in the sidewalk – I have absolutely loved all of the public artwork in Portugal that we have found, sometimes in the most unexpected places.
We headed back to Lisbon to meet up with Aidan for dinner. We had a bit of an adventure on the way back. You see, on the way there we took this modern electric tram, and we tapped our credit card on the machine in the tram – no problem. This time when we got on, it would not accept credit cards. We did not want to get caught on the tram when we hadn’t paid, so we hopped off at the next stop, found a machine to load our transit card, and then got back on the next tram. We only had 4 minutes to figure it out, as we didn’t want to miss the ferry. When we got back on the tram, only two of the three cards reloaded properly. So, we stayed on and hoped no one would check. I held onto my receipt in case an inspector came on before the ferry terminal. Luckily none did.
Aidan met us at the ferry terminal around 7:15. He had a busy few days since we saw him last, so it was great to meet up again. It took us wandering awhile before we found an available restaurant called Meson Andaluz. There was only space on the patio on the stairs outside the restaurant. It was interesting Andalusian cuisine from Spain.
It was a bit chilly, but the food was fantastic, and we were there for several hours eating. We ordered four or five tapas and then two entrees, but we were still hungry, so we ordered three more tapas and two more entrees. It was a lovely dinner that we savoured. Really outstanding.
Again, we had a lovely time with Aidan and didn’t get home until midnight. We had to pack and didn’t get to sleep until about 1 am and then had to get up at 4:30 to go to the airport.