Évora

8-Oct-23

Portugal produces the majority of the world's cork (all those wine bottles & coasters! 😜). Just outside of Évora, we drove past a cork farm & learned that they harvest the cork bark from the base of the tree, so we could still see the layer of cork on the upper branches. The oak trees have a beautiful deep red layer of wood underneath & to my surprise, can live up to 200 years when sustainably harvested!

Évora is yet another ancient city in the Iberian Peninsula, dating back 5 millennia. Surrounded by agricultural fields, Évora sat at the crossroads of several trade routes for both the Celts & Romans, so it became an important and wealthy city early on. Sadly for us, it's also one of the hottest regions in Portugal (due to its geography & climate patterns) & the current heat wave we're experiencing made it that much worse. 🥵

We had 24 hours to make the most of Évora, so we walked all over town hitting the major sights & treated ourselves to a Roman style bath (alternating hot & cold pools) at the end of the day to rest our weary bodies. 😄

Praça do Giraldo

Cathedral de Évora (built between 1280-1340)

Central Nave

Renaissance choir stalls

Bell tower

Views from Cathedral rooftop

Cloister

Temple of Diana (c. 1st century) - Likely built in honour of Emperor Augustus & destroyed in the 5th century during the Barbarian (Germanic) Invasion.

Igreja dos Lóios next to Temple

Nave of Igreja dos Lóios

This church is famous for its blue & white tiles

St. Apollonia, patron Saint of Dentists (seems random 🤷)

Original Moorish tiles

Igreja de Graça

Igreja de São Francisco, late 15th-early 16th century

Cathedral Chapter Hall

The beautifully macabre Bone Chapel in the Church of St. Francis is the most famous landmark in Évora. Best the turn of the 16th century, Franciscan monks exhumed an estimated 5000 corpses from local church cemeteries to decorate the chapel. 

The preserved bodies of a woman and little girl (unknown origin) were also placed on the chapel.

Wall of bonessss!!