Day 42: Alvito to Evora

April 12, 2023

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Our way from Alvito toward Evora did not take us through Alvito town, such as it may have been, but we did peek at the outskirts. It was a typical scene for these parts - low lying, joined together buildings, very plain but with some pastel touches.

Unlike the last two days, the road and the landscape did not wow us as we started out. It was ok, and we did see a rare holding still for a second Magpie, a large amount of cork forest, a "rare" red clover, a large flock of sheep, and a horse seemingly embarrassed to have all his buddies being sheep!

These are plentiful, but not easy to shoot!

There were no more huge expanses of olive, certainly not citrus, bt there were large groves of cork oak.

We have not seen red clover like this anywhere else. It is apparently called Crimson or Italian clover and is native to Europe, but surely not Canada.

We often saw the sheep among the cork oak. That struck us as a good way to use the land, since the cork harvest is only once every 9 years. The sheep in this shot seem to be among olive and not oak.

Cattle are not usually a major part of the landscape in Portugal, but we like to see them. The ones around here have very sharp looking horns!

We have lost track of what the types of cattle here might be. We did judge that they look "very beefy".

One thing we were not pleased with at all, was being sprayed with agricultural chemical. Cyclists (and walkers) are really susceptible to this, since they can not escape the poisonous cloud quickly, as you can in a car. One time I got really gassed in the States and Dodie had to take me into a restaurant for several hours to recover. This time we were ok, but that was a wet mist, that landed on us.

The dominant thing for our ride today was unfortunately not landscape, creatures, or flowers but the just that little bit too heavy traffic on the narrow road, and the lots too fast and too close conduct of the drivers. It's hard to really enjoy thngs when every thirty seconds or so another careening car or truck is on your tail!

No shoulder can be ok, if traffic is light, and drivers are careful. It was not the case here.

Here is the road looking suitably empty, but the landscape is also not stunning.

We have not seen much of the local people, other than those in cars, but these guys at least seemed to have the right caps.

Looking at the acres and acres of vines or trees, even in this somewhat undeveloped area, were remarked on the amount of work it must take to plant, prune, and harvest the stuff, yet we had seen literally no workers. This changed a little, as we encountered maybe a dozen people going through a (huge) vineyard. We could see that they were nipping out offshoots at the bases, to keep the vine to a single main stem.

We had a very amusing time as we drew near to Evora, as we passed the airport and a skydive facility that was continually flying people up over the town, circling around and dropping them to parachute down to the airfield. Quite a few of these were tandem jumpers, and we speculated on whether we would want to do that. That speculation took just one second, NO WAY! However, everyone has their own sport, and we had just fought hills and traffic on toy bikes for 47 km, to get to the point where we could poo poo somebody else's activity.

Viewed from a few km out, Evora is dominated by its Cathedral. Surprisingly, once we were inside the walls, I was saying to Dodie "Where's the Cathedral?".

We often look at the statues in roundabouts at the entrances to towns for clues about their self image. After our relatively grueling ride thanks to local drivers, we were surprised to find cycling featured at the entrance to town. But yes, it was homage to a local cyclist. It was not a one off, either, for when we sought out the Jardim Publico to eat our sandwiches in, it had a major retrospective of some cycle race with a 40 year history here.

We needed to find a way through the wall, to enter the city.

Seems like a neat way to fold your wings!

From near the wall we looked up to a portion of town. It has lots of character, but does look rather worn. Hey, what do you think that bird is?

On the way to finding our Booking we stopped in at the Church of San Francisco, from the 15-16th century. This has a dozen side chapels, with Mary or Jesus figures mounted. This helped satisfy my quest for "Virgins", which was kicked off or worsened in Spain. Dodie is tired of me going on about it!

This is a pretty decent crowned Virgin and child.

This is the church that also has the "Chapel of Bones", which is super famous and certainly well featured in the likes of the Classens' blog. But I came out having seen no chapel and no bones. We put this aside while we went to find our room and drop the bikes. But we came back, and now neither of us could spot a single bone. Walking down the aisle of the church I observed some Asian visitors in the pews, each with their head deeply bowed. "Wow", I thought, "Some really devoted people". But sure enough, each head was deeply bowed over its smart phone. Shortly thereafter, outside, I figured that these would be the very people to be brimming with information. So I asked them about the Chapel of Bones. "Sure, it's right over there", they said, "But watch out, it's about to close".

Sure enough, they had hidden the entrance just beside the main entrance of the church, crypically hanging a sign depicting the Chapel and with the word "Entrance" over the door. But the people had been right, there was no time left before closing!

How are we supposed to spot an entrance like this?

When we arrived at the Peacock House rooms, the lady indicated the stairs that the bikes would need to come up, reminding us that she had mentioned this in the Booking messages. No problem, we removed some of the heaviest bags, and the lady volunteered to help with lifting the bikes. I told her to just grab the front rack and I would take the rear, such that we could walk straight up with the bike. But the lady could not lift the front, so we switched her to the rear. I led the way, then, with Dodie calling to me "Go slow, go slow". By the top, the lady was puffing quite a bit. I sought to encourage her "You're a real cyclist now!". "No, I'm not" was her analysis. This was followed by a disappearing act that we have not seen since the famous "hafer flocken" incident in Germany years ago. In that one, seeking out her favourite food - oatmeal - Dodie approached a clerk in a grocery, asking (in English) about oatmeal. The clerk received this onslaught of English, freaked, and fled. She was never seen again!

So it was with my bike helper. Oh well, I just grabbed the bike and hoiked it up the stairs. No big deal, for a "real" cyclist!

With the bikes safely stored up the stairs, we set off for a look at the town. It has the familiar low white buildings with yellow trim, and the expected inside the walls narrow streets. Many of the streets offered souvenir shops, which we love particularly for postcards but also for insight into how the locals choose to portray their culture to the visitors.

Somehow, sometime this style of chicken became ironically Portuguese.

All sorts of cork products are on offer. Of course the true quality and "corkiness" may be debatable, but everything did seems to be made in Portugal.

Out in a main square, some singers with yellow stockings were putting on a small performance. I spoke to one later and found that they are nursing students, and that it is a tradition in town for students to sing in the squares. They did have a collection plate, but raising money did not seem to be their main focus. You can see that one of their banners says University of Evora. The University of Evora is the second oldest in the country and was established in 1559!

There were several restaurants in the square, with reasonable prices.

Buildings on the square have balconies and nice windows.

We followed some further narrow and attractive streets to the Roman Temple. This is in Corinthian style and was built in the first century A.D. It was originally part of the Roman forum and was dedicated to Emperor Augustus. Around the 17th century a myth built up that this was a temple to Diana, Goddess of the Hunt, but the closest it got to that over the years was having been used at one point as a slaughterhouse. Now the temple is much restored and is a famous symbol of Evora.

Just behind the temple is a great view to a section of the town below. This is where we also encountered a tourist wearing a Mountain Equipment Coop day pack. This allowed me to address him with "You must be Canadian". Sure enough, the man and his wife were from Montreal. We had a good time speaking English and French, and generally lamenting the demise of the Mountain Equipment Coop. There is clearly a deep well of resentment at the "sell out" of this former Canadian institution, and Canadians can easily recall their shock and upset even when standing by a Roman temple in the middle of bloody Portugal!

Also standing by the temple was another group of singing students. These were not nurses, but just miscellaneous students. We don't know whether their song was traditional or well known, but we do like to see mandolins in action.

Upon entering the Cathedral, the first move was to climb the tower. This afforded some shots of the town from above, including a look down to the temple, where you can see the students still singing.

The ogival arches mentioned in the poster

The arched construction in the cloister. It is also said that there are dead buried beneath the flagstones, each placed in a vertical position. Seems an uncomfortable way to spend eternity!

Here is a bishop with a more comfortable looking bed.

Quite fancy main interior. The Cathedral, by the way, and many of the surrounding buildings, played important roles in the Inquisition.

We left the Cathedral and set off generally back to our room.

Cars, that had been bugging us during the early part of the day on the highway continued to do so in the narrow streets of Evora. In many cases there was not really room for pedestrians, plus parked cars, plus moving cars, and certainly there were no sidewalks. At one point when Dodie advised me to "get out of the road" I was quite snarly about it. But have a look at the shot below. Cars should not be here. I would have loved to see that thing lose a mirror!

We got ourselves slightly lost, and passed by the hospital where no doubt those nursing students worked. We remarked that a hospital looking that well worn would have long ago been replaced in Canada.

Scott identified the source of the violet coloured flowers on the cobbles the other day as Jacaranda. He is no doubt correct. Here is another one, doing its thing.

Tomorrow we will rejoin the N2, and our journey North. We found a town and a place to stay along the route, but towns and places could be hard to find. We'll see!

Today's ride: 47 km (29 miles)
Total: 1,835 km (1,140 miles)

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