Albergaria Acez Évora

On Saturday my Gap adventure tour began. We headed to Evora, Portugal on the afternoon of May 8th. Evora is a sleepy little town in central Portugal. We walked through some of the medevil streets and admired the ruins of a roman forum which included a temple to Diana, we also explord a ghoulish church decorated with the bones of over 1000 bodies and enjoyed a sleep in a hotel room bed. Since I do not have much to dicuss about Evora I will take an opportunity to ...

... working the counter tried to call us a taxi with no luck, kept saying nata, nata which was a bit frustrating. Finally after 30 min. of trying to communicate with them we walk into town and knock on one of the taxi driver´s doors, said he would drive us back to Beja! So crisis avoided, we made it back 4 hours after we intended and had a cook-up with Alex and Jason...who were smart enough to take the early bus!!!

... is a meditation on the human condition for the Franciscans. They took artistic license, and pelvises encased heads, small bones in the arm form wings on a ghoulish skeleton in the archway, and the mummies of a young child and a man even hang from one of the chapel's walls. Tomorrow, we head to Lagos, an area famous for beaches and bars in The Algarve region of southern Portugal. We will probably melt, but we plan to have fun in the process. More soon. Ciao from Portugal.

if portugal had a version of bath-spa, evora would probably be it. a tiny walled-town of roman origins, it's a fun place to walk around, grab some of the many local dishes, and get lost in the narrow alley-way streets that have discovery after discovery everywhere one turns. of note, the intercity buses here have stewardesses on ...

An early morning, at least for us, and we were on our way by train about 2 hours outside of Lisbon to the Alentejo region of Portugal and the town of Evora, another UNESCO World Heritage Site. On our way to Evora we passed through groves of Cork trees. You will see from the photos - albeit taken from a moving train - a little bit about the Cork tree. You can see where the trunks are red in color - this is where the cork has been harvested. I believe it needs ...

... but jammed packed with heaps of history, the earliest remains are from the roman times i think it was built in 100 AD! We check out a little chapel that arvo called 'Capela dos Ossos' or the chapel of bones. It was made in the 16th century by monks to remind people of the fragility of life. the inside walls were made completely from bones! It was very spooky, some of the bones had fallen ...

... cities, that we should go. As we arrived, we drove through this huge aqueduct. Across was the servo so we went in to fill up. Now maybe, they don't like French or Spanish here in Portugal, but the diesel pump's nozzle wouldn't fit in the hole. I just sat it there, on the edge, filling the car up as best I could whilst a couple of locals smoked near me. I didn't blow up, just like in Tunisia, so we parked up across the road to take the photos. It had been built in the ...

... either of has seen was called, The Chaple of Bones. It was pretty strange. Many many years ago (i don´t have the year in front of me) three monks took the bones of 5000 people and made this chapel for people to reflect in about life and death. The walls, columns, and ceiling were all covered with every shape of bone and the sculls too. Anyway the weather was awesome for the two days we were there and it got us looking forward to getting to the beaches. Lagos here we come!

... century and then rebuilt in the 10th and later centuries. The streets are small and windy and parts of the roman baths and temples, as well as later convents and church can still be seen...the streets were strangly empty, even for a sunday. We quickly remembered though that the world cup was on, since every single television was turned onto a football game or a recap of the prior games, with a large group of people avidly watching the screen.

How can it be so hard to find the massive Ponte 25 de Abril bridge over the Tagus river??? We could see it, but It took us almost an hour of driving around Lisbon to find the entry to the bridge and A2 Sul. To add insult, it was a toll bridge. It was May 30 and we were headed for Evora. The drive wasn't anything to write home about--it was hot, silly sunny and hazy. We enjoyed the fresh air, the breeze and seeing the cork oaks dotting the landscape. Arriving ...