Best Western Hotel Santa Clara Évora

... the hilarity of Spainish and Portugese bathrooms. They are a source of amusement on this trip. In our hotel room in Evora our bathroom consisted of a sink, a basin on the floor and a shower head. That is correct, there was no toilet and to take a shower you shut the bathroom door and let the water spray everywhere while you stand in the tiny basin. The next most amusing bathroom was in Albufeira, Portugal. First, the shower had windows that you could open 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!!!

... a gorgeous, uncrowded beach that looked almost like Door County, WI or somewhere off Cape Cod. We set up camp and headed to the beach, where we watch a seaful of kite boarders and wind surfers. The Portuguese seem much more adventurous than the beer-and-brats Milwaukee crowd we're used to... Our next stop was Porto, Portugal, the home of Port wine and....window-smashing thieves. We spent our first day pleasantly roaming Porto, a nearly crumbling old city still ...

... and they show movies on the trips too. but tonight marks my last night here in portugal. i've been roped into doing the pubcrawl at the hostel tonight, so yet another interesting flight lies ahead. speaking of which, the air traffic controller's strike has apparently been called off! (i'm actually kinda disappointed about that).

... to the Roman Temple. This Roman Temple - from the 1st Century BC - part of a Roman Forum was completely surrounded by water giving it a very interesting reflective feature. Amazing just how far those Romans traveled! We were then off to the Cathedral, where they honor Mary...."With Child". You will see a dedication to her in the chapel and then again in the cloisters. Three Archbishops are entombed here and one Archbishop currently resides in the town of ...

... the old city walls. I go to the Capela dos Ossos. The bone church. Creapy but Kutna Hora in Czech Republic by Prague, now that's a bone church (Sedlec Kostnice). In order to see the Capela dos Ossos I have to buy a combo ticket for the tower, museum of the "regular" church and the bone chapel. Hmm. It was just 3 euros with my student discount. I wander around town trying to find the Roman remains.. no luck. I do find the ...

... by ancient walls and has been preserved in its original state. It was known by the Romans as Liberalitas Julia, and vestiges from this period (walls and rooms) and the monumental imperial temple (Diana's temple), still remain. We have booked accommodation at the eclectic Pensăo Policarpo. This charming pousada is the 16th century home of the Condes da Lousă, and is located down a narrow cobbled lane ...

... Portugal was absolutely stunning. It's kind of a shame that we all felt so terribly. It was a long, quiet car ride. Evora might be my favorite city to date, in Europe. It's a walled city that has taken great pains to keep its old world flavor. It was the first city that we've been to so far that I would deem romantic. We didn't do too much there, just took about a thousand pictures. The town had been occupied by the Romans ...

... Faro, Portugal. Faro wasn't too exciting but I was glad to be off the buses. It's sort of a seaside town, but the beach is about 6km from the town center...so really all there is is the town...and it's kinda lame. My Lonely Planet book was kind enough to provide no map of Faro so I just wandered and found a pensao. The next day I took the train to Lagos and it was much nicer. Cool little town with some nice beaches. A guy found me right after I ...

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 ...