Estremoz, Évora District, Portugal
Driving in the fog
All looks very mysterious today
with the yellowy fog. We came through an interesting area with a few weird
trees.
In the narrow streets of Estemorez
Our first break today is in
Estemorez, Gine said you can drive up to the castle - we could see it ahead of us (in the fog) and
see there, we drove right through the wall and over a drawbridge onto the
narrow cobblestones – super sharp left and higher up until we finally ended up on a big plaza in
front of the tower. The weird thing is there are no people around here – We
decided if there wouldn’t be any fog, we would have an amazing view. But we did
say Hi to Isabel of Aaragon:
- this palace (today a hotel) was built by Dom Dinis for his new wife Isabel of Aragon. After her death it was used as an ammunition dump and exploded in 1698 and destroyed most of it, got restored by Joao V.
- By the way Isabel was famed for her charity and became a saint in 1625
Gine went in the hotel and asked
and yes you can go up on the tower: we started to climb up on the first level –
once there Gine found a door closed with a broom and said there is another way
up – as per Paul if it is closed you shouldn’t go in there – as the view is
likely limited in the fog and as we per Paul can’t see all, we turned around.
And then the fun starts, Gine
said why don’t we drive straight through that narrow street and that is what we
did – I mean those roads are narrow and then we came over the drawbridge again:
how often can you drive over a drawbridge with the car??? We decided the most
fun was driving the narrow streets here – which by the way are cobble stone
with white houses – yes this is another of those famous white towns in
Portugal.
And through country roads we continue
on. I told Paul that we are only 15 Min behind schedule – when Paul said he
thought for a short time that he is on vacation!! – Really what is that???
Evoramente – upper town
Gine said: next stop will be
very narrow roads – ok we discovered Google map is really not that smart, as it
wanted to send us up a road which is impossible to drive: steep and rough and
it was blocked off – but we still went up a narrow road and then – we were
hoping it’s one way as it is so narrow (and discovered later it is actually not
a one-way, it is the only way!!) We came up to the castle where there are 2
parking spots and continued on until we came to a teeny tiny parking. Where
Paul found a new friend: a cute little kitty.
We were right at the walls and a
cemetery,from the walls you can see all the way down, we are actually quite
high up – and decided to walk along the wall (which had no railings either) and
then up on the tower –the steps are super narrow – and as we continued to walk
we came to a kind of tower.
As we discovered, we are at a
dead end street, that means once we ready to leave we turned around the car and
hoped for the best: I mean that there is no car coming up – good thing is there
are no cars and no people around – otherwise one car would back up quite a bit!!!
We stopped at the castle which has some cool stone ropes on the outside – but
we decided not to pay for the entrance fee as we saw already so many castles
and likely will see many more. – but we did walk around this super cool square-with
round towers-castle.
2025-05-22