Roman Ruins and Megaliths (Evora ~ Portugal)

13 September 2022

Evora is at its heart an old walled city where the wall still exists and is a beautiful little town to spend a few days in. It's full of v narrow and windy streets which the locals still insist on driving cars down. Luckily the streets are one way as they are barely wide enough for a car and a pedestrian. Having said that it's a mystery why so many of the locals drive station wagons as turning a corner involves starting the turn, back up a bit, turn a bit more, back up a bit again and finally turn the corner. 

Our couple of days here were marred slightly as Evora was clipped by the edge of Hurricane Danielle - just enough so that sudden downpours would occur about once an hour.

In the city's historic center stands the ancient Roman Temple to Diana and in the middle of the nearby municipal building the recently discovered (late 90s) roman baths - very  cool.

The Porta de Moura fountain was built in the 1500's and, as its name would imply, near the entrance in the city walls. Over many centuries stock, horses etc would drink here and the necks, harnesses and/or hooves would rub on the walls of the fountain. So much so that over time wide grooves have been rubbed into the sides of the fountain. 

Religion has a big part, ok sodding massive part, in Portuguese culture and cuisine.

In the late fifteenth century King Manuel of Portugal ordered all resident Jews to convert to Christianity or leave the country, something he didn't really want to happen for  economic reasons so, when the deadline arrived, he announced that no ships were available for those who refused conversion. The unconverted were dragged to churches for a forced mass baptism. No great surprise that, most Jews maintained their religion secretly, but tried to show an image of being good Christians.

One way of doing this was by consuming a sausage, the Alheiras sausage, that looked like a pork sausage (but really only contained heavily spiced game and chicken). FYY - the Alheiras is quite tasty though very mushy. 

Plus you can't really avoid getting hit with large doses of religion when sightseeing.  With that said we checked out the Evora cathedral which is massive and highly impressive. The entry ticket included access to the bell tower and the roof with great views over the city (including the Aquaduct) and the museum (lots of religious artefacts and paintings).

The other big church we visited (again impressive building and museum with lots of religious artefacts, paintings and a small part of the Canha de Silva familys Nativity Scene collection - apparently their full collection is in excess of 3,600 Nativity Scenes) was Igreja de São Francisco.

But must admit the primary reason for visiting here was to see the adjoining chapel of bones. 

Like a few cities of this era its water supply came from an aquaduct but what is amazing is that the Aquiduct still functions and still supplies some of the water to the city.

Decided to treat ourselves and have dinner at Catuxi Enocarta where the menu is tapas-like with small about $9, medium about $20, large about $30 and deserts at about $9. Plus with each dish there is a recommended glass of wine which varies from $5 to $25.

We opted for 2 small, 2 medium and 2 deserts with matching wines walked out stuffed and paid about the same as we would have on an average meal out in NZ. The dishes we had were fish soup, gazpacho with skewered "whitebait", braised octopus, slow cooked pig cheek, olive oil flan with olives and orange salad and Touchino do Ceu (egg mousse with ginger and lemon cream).

Did a tour out to see some nearby Megaliths and a dolmen (standing stones and a barrow) that date back about 5,500 years ago and was guided by an extremely knowledgeable and enthusiastic guide - so much so that we ended up visiting the Evora Museum just to see the artefacts recovered from the dolman that she described. The Megaliths were in an area where cork is regularly harvested hence lots of trees where the number is 

The last digital of the year they were harvested.

Dinner on our last night in Evora was at a burger joint. Now Francesinha is the Portuguese version of a Croque-Monsieur and basically is a sarnie with beef, spicy sausage topped with cheese and a beer sauce. 

The is the burger version of a Francesinha with a soft fried egg on top, and the pattie was served pink (so much so 50% of kiwis would probably send it back). V tasty.

From here we head south to the Algarve.

Sintra, Elevators and Rhinos (Lisbon ~ Portugal)

11 September  2022

One of the places that are kinda on the must see list when in Lisbon is Sintra and the surrounding attractions. Thought about doing it on public transport but realised that we would spend an awful lot of time getting between sights, so opted for a guided tour. 

First stop on the tour was a place known as the devils cauldron,  named as because in the winter the surf in here pounds hard enough that the waves break near the top. 

Next stop was Cascais. Back in the day Cascais was a pretty little fishing village complete with fort and is now at bit of a tourist hot spot, having said that does still retain a good chunk of its original charm.

The weather though wasn't that great as we were getting hit by the tail end of Hurricane Danielle which meant an erratic mist bank would flow in from the sea.

The  next obligatory stop on tour round here is Cabo da Roca, the most westerly point of Europe (used to be somewhere in the UK but since Brexit it's now back here again). Every Sunday thousands of motor bike enthusiasts meet here and guess what we were there on Sunday. So it was a tad busy and noisy but some very cool bikes in the car park.

Sintra is a cool little town with lots of quite extravagant houses and palaces and high enough that it's gets a bit cooler.

On the hill top above Sintra sit the remains of Castelo dos Mouros - but at a 35 minute uphill slog to it we decided to appreciate its beauty from a distance.

The next usual stop is Pena Palace however since it is pretty much the palace that all tours go to it would mean queuing for up to an hour so based on advice from our guide we (us and the other 4 people with us) opted for the National Palace of Queluz which was one of the last great Rococo buildings to be designed in Europe, it was conceived as a summer retreat for Dom Pedro of Braganza. The palace and grounds are quite stunning in their opulence.  Quite surprised to find that in the early 1900's Portugal become a Republic and the Monarchy simply had their titles removed, rather than their titles, lands and heads. This basically means that a lot of the buildings the Royal family used to own were left intact.

A small river runs through the grounds and this was converted into a pool (by means of concrete, tiles and dropping boards in at the downstream end to retain the water) in which the royalty could swim, or if the fancy took them, go for a row. Sadly Portugal has been in a bit of a drought for the last few years and the river is now a veritable trickle.

Some quite odd fountains jn the gardens.

Back in town we did some more sightseeing - not quite sure the significance of this but the surrounding area had some very cool murals on the road - think these may have been set up a pedestrian/dining areas.

The Steam punky Santa Justa lift in lower Lisbon shuttles people (and tourists for a good fee) 45m up as the terrain here is particularly challenging. 

First consisting of an animal-powered inclined rail lift, work began in 1900 to replace that with a vertical elevator. Inaugurated by King Carlos in 1901 and fully operational in 1902. Originally powered by a steam engine, the elevator motor was converted to cleaner electric operation in 1907.

At the top of the steam punk lift is the ruins of the Carmo Convent. The Covent was pretty much wiped out by a magnitude 9 earthquake in 1755 and the ruins of the Convent were left in their current state as a reminder of that event.

The other sight we wanted to check out was the Jerónimos Monastry at Belem and the nearby Belem Tower but in a case of bad planning neither were open on the day we choose to see them, but decided to have a look anyway. On the way to see Belems tower we spotted this  a submarine powering it's way out of Lisbon Harbour. V cool.

In 1515 a rhinoceros was delivered to King Manuel I. He was a less than charming fellow as for entertainment he decided to watch a fight between the rhino and an elephant - no body told the elephant  it was meant to be the natural enemy of a rhinoceros and he wandered off. Manuel become bored with the rhino and in an attempt to curry favour had it sent to Pope Leo the 10th as a gift. Sadly never made it to Rome and died when the ship carrying it sunk. 

Said rhino inspired a famous engraver Albrecht Dürer the trouble was he never actually saw the rhino, only had it described to him. Didn't stop the engraving called "Dürer’s Rhinoceros" becoming famous all over Europe.

Anyway in thhe mid 1500's on the coast about where the poor rhino was loaded the Belem Tower was built and around various turrets are exotic animals including the rhino.

From here we head inland to Evora - home of some Megaliths.