Evora

Our 2nd destination was the historic, ancient city of Evora where all the streets located within the massive city walls are part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
We found it to be a beautiful place with narrow streets of whitewashed & yellow trim houses whose doors must be green or brown only ! , opening out into attractive tree lined squares & arched colonnades of small shops. The cobbles were challenging in the buggy but we managed quite well - then found Frederico a tuk-tuk driver who took the buggy from the Cathedral back to the hotel & then came back for us to take us on a full tour of the city.There are huge stone city walls - part of which formed the rear of the garden of our hotel Mar De Ar which was decorated in a country shabby chic style - an ancient aqueduct and the ruins of a Roman Temple. One of the memorable parts of our stay was a visit to the Chapel of Bones - decorated throughout with bones by the monks as a reminder that we are all going end up as bones whatever our status in life. The chapel inscription read "We bones are here & we wait for yours"
We had found a tiny, 12 cover restaurant featuring on Trip Advisor as the best place in town - and pre-booked a table at Tabua de Naldo - great food & banter with Chef Naldo in the back streets of the city - even the taxi driver didn't think it existed ! The locals were celebrating their festival week & we wandered through the fair ground with every local organisation having a stall - from charities, schools, political parties & crafts people all represented.
In all we thought this was a lovely atmospheric cityRead more