Estalagem Sao Domingos Beja

We left Lisboa and travelled through miles and miles of open country in which grew cork and olive trees and lots and lots of vines. We visited Evora which is a World Heritage site. It is a walled city with lots of churches, narrow cobbled lanes and Roman ruins.

As we were becoming used to in Portugal, there are quite a few Chinese Bazaars-selling clothes, household goods,electical goods and the sort of stuff you find in Pound Shops in England. Even in a ...

... 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 ...

... left the cafe with enough time to get to the bus station. Once we got there though, we found out it was a holiday, All Saints Day, and we just missed the last bus! The guy at the ticket desk said we could catch a bus to Portel, 30 min. south and then hitch from there, only option since we already paid for a ccomodations and a taxi back would be 80 euros! So we catch the bus and arrive in Portel where a couple of ...

So Beja is not a tourist town really but I guess that´s the appeal of it. The original plan was to go from Lisboa to Evora but there are no hostels there so Anna, Alex, Jason and I took the bus to Beja where there is a hostel, an hour south of Evora. We were traveling for most of the day so we spent the night carving ...

... around in the garage, we were told that the car would not be ready until the next afternoon. Having no choice but to wait, we gave Porto another day of our itinerary. At least the car was parked in the Renault garage that night. We destressed with a walk along one of Porto's rocky beach front and splurged on a beach side, sunset meal. Then, we headed back to our hostel where all of the staff comforted us and gave us advice on where to go on the rest of our ...

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 ...

... to do with it. In the distance we could see the whitewashed buildings and the old wall so we knew that we were getting close to Evora. We headed through the old wall of the city and made our way to the Praca do Giraldo, the main square and from there we oriented ourselves. First stop was to the Church of Saint Francis and to the special side chapel there - you will pick that out in the photos! After we checked that out we walked up to the Rua Vasco de Gama ...

... a corral of some sort. We crossed the border into Portugal outside of Badajoz, Spain- and were accidentally greeted by an amazingly clunky and loud Brazillian Samba band of kids who happened to be practicing their drum core on the 'porch' of an abandoned factory in the mysterious zone between borders. Maybe that's a safe place to make a ruckus but it sure was awesome. The road into Elvas, Portugal (the first castle town over the border) was a little winding route riding along-the ...

... their boobies and thongs up their butts. They had cellulite pimpled bellies shakin to the music, and none of them smiled when they danced. We saw all kinds of floats, most of them making political statements or mocking the religious figures of the time. One of the most impressionable was the "Pope" smoking a cigarette and drinking beer. In fact, now that I think about it, there were very few entertainers on the floats NOT drinking beer. The parade ...

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 ...