We’ve done the city and are ready to explore its surroundings. I say ready but really what I mean is we needed something to do between brunch and dinner. Sitting down and day drinking for a whole day sounded a little too hard on our liver.
We started the day with brunch at at 📍Do Largo. Our research did not yield a better place, we enjoyed the food served there yesterday so why not adopt it for our whole stay? We went for their “three course” brunch menu. A croissant to start, yogourt or acai with fruits and crumble to continue and some form of toast with protein to finish it all. It includes a coffee and a glass of juice. Pretty decent brunch. If only they did good coffee…
Fueled for our hectic day of spending time between meals, we set our sights on our first set of stones. The📍Cromeleque dos Almendres is a prehistoric stone circle. It’s composed of about 95 granite monoliths that, as it turns out, is the largest megalithic monument in the Iberian Peninsula dating back roughly 7,000 years. Apparently it’s referred to as the "Portuguese Stonehenge”; while it is about 2,000 years older than the famous monument in England, it is significantly less impressive, at least if you look at the size of the thing or the fact that the latter is a structure while the former is a series of straight menhirs in the ground. It’s old, it’s different and, while the claim it was “rediscovered” 1964 is a bit ridiculous (as if nobody in the region knew of a bunch of rocks arranged together), it’s worth driving through rough roads to get there. We might have complained about getting an SUV when we asked for a compact car, but it made that drive quite a bit easier.
We stopped about 1.3 kilometers on the way back from the Cromeleque to visit the solitary 📍Menir dos Almendres. It’s a 3.5-meter-tall stone that aligns with the cromlech during the summer solstice sunrise. To get there we had to walk a narrow trail between two fences that seemed to prevent people from walking in a field of cork oaks. On the one hand, it’s understandable they want to protect the trees from the hoard of tourists. The bark of cork oak regenerates over a period of 9 to 12 years, meaning you need to leave the trees the fuck alone after harvest. Not every visitor understands that most places have a look, don’t touch rule by default and that it’s not only at museums but the outdoors too.
We concluded our adventure at the 📍Castelo de Arraiolos, a distinctive 14th-century fortress known for its circular walls (which are rare around here). Commissioned by King Dinis around 1305, the castle sits atop the Monte de São Pedro, offering a good ventage point on the surrounding plains. Although it suffered significant damage over the centuries, it was classified as a National Monument in 1910 and partially restored since. By partially restored I mean there are still two gaping holes on the wall that you can drive through, literally. We had to get out of the way of driving visitors preferring a driving tour instead of the much more reasonable walking tour we did.
Adventure completed, we went back to the 📍public parking just outside of Évora’s city wall, saving us from driving our SUV in the very narrow streets of Évora. We then essentially beelined to our now favourite Évora drinking spot: 📍Café Arcada. We day drank on the terrace for a couple of hours before regrouping home for a while.
Évora should have been a two night stay, not three. However, the saving grace of that third day and what made it more than worth it is the dinner at 📍Tua Madre. The restaurant makes a small set of dishes out of an ever evolving menu. It’s an Italian restaurant that creates the dishes from local ingredients and uses inspiration of regional dishes to create an Italian twist. It made for an exceptional meal at a surprisingly low price for the quality of what we were served. We were delighted.
Tomorrow we’re returning the car at the Lisbon Airport and then enjoying a two and a half hour bus ride to the start of our segment of the fisherman’s trail. We’re really looking forward to a couple of days of hiking along the coast.