It’s been a lovely relaxing day today. Getting out of Lisbon was fairly easy this morning. We expected to be paying 32 euros for our parking fees at the hotel before we left but they very kindly waved the parking fees and only charged us 8 euros for the city taxes. Being a public holiday there was less traffic on the road as well so that helped. We couldn’t avoid the toll roads so it was highway driving all the way to Evora this morning. This was our only destination today and as we were here by 10am we had plenty of time to explore the town at our leisure. 

Evora is a walled city.  We’ve been bitten a couple of times driving into the historic centre of a town and then having to find our way out of narrow streets and alleyways. So this time when we saw a park on the outskirts we decided to take it. As it happened we probably wouldn’t have had any trouble in this town but we were comfortable with the 700 metre walk into the city centre. 

Because we had no set timeline today we spent quite a bit of time just wandering around, looking in and out of interesting shops and just exploring the town centre. We visited the cathedral, walked to the top of the bell tower for a view of the city, saw the cloisters which were lovely and the church itself which is quite spectacular. Another church in town, the Royal Church of Saint Francis has a chapel of bones. It’s very macabre. The chapel is decorated with the skulls and bones of at least 5000 bodies. They were dug up in the 16th century when the cemeteries were taking up too much room!  That’s one way to make use of them!  

Our Airbnb tonight is on a property just outside Evora. I’d describe it as a hacienda. We’re in a separate cottage attached to the main house.  We were sent detailed instructions for finding the place since it seems previous guests had had trouble getting here. Luckily they also sent the GPS coordinates which we were able to copy and put in maps. It brought us right to the door with no problems. That’s a new skill I’ve learnt. I didn’t know you could do that. The lady who owns the property, Rita, is lovely. She’s going to make us breakfast in the morning. 

We went back into town later and bought some nibbles for dinner and we’ve just been enjoying them out by the pool with a glass of wine. It’s been a lovely laidback day. 

No photos as yet. Internet too weak to handle them.