Evora, Portugal - The Good, the Bad, and the Meh

This October, last week to be specific, I went to Portugal for 8 days. The trip, aside from solidifying my deep hatred of Heathrow Airport in London, was a ton of fun. Portugal has been one of my Top 10 countries to visit for a while and of course it has also been one of the millennial/Instagram places to visit in Europe. It’s relatively cheap, it’s fun, and it’s photogenic. I broke my trip into two locations – 4 days in Evora and 4 in Lisbon. This article will be just about Evora. Lisbon will come next.

If you’ve never heard of Evora, I don’t blame you. It’s not off the beaten path, but definitely on more of a dirt road that goes to the side, than a major location. Evora is the capital of the Alentejo region of Portugal, the rural, sparsely populated, agricultural center of the country. My interest was sparked by the history of the area. Evora, which, for the record, has a smaller population than the suburb I grew up in, has medieval walls, Roman ruins, and in the country-side a massive collection of Iron Age sites. There is also great wine – the Alentejo is known for its excellent reds. So with that context in mind, here is the good, the bad, and the meh of the Alentejo.

The Great
Ebora Megaliths Tour
I literally cannot gush about this tour enough.  It was one of, if not the best, things I did in Portugal. The tour guide makes a tour and Mario, the archeologist who owns and runs the tour company is the proof of that. You can tell when a guide is genuinely excited and cares about the topic, and that was absolutely the case her. Without a guide, there isn’t much to see at the megalithic sites to be honest. They are 7,000-5,000 years old after all. But with the tour, you get not just historical context, but explanations of things you’d never notice and modern conservation issues. I also got a crash course in Portuguese politics, which was fascinating in its own right, but that was because the national elections happened the day before. My mom and friends are probably tired of hearing about how much I loved this tour at this point.

Cheese
Rural Portugal meant cows, and cows mean cheese. And oh my goodness did the Alentejo have cheese. Soft stinky cheese with a rind that you would swear is French. Something wet and crumbly and fresh, but not quite queso fresca. Hard goat cheese. Cheese with an almost baked rind, but crumbly and salty inside. So much cheese. I had maybe seven different cheeses in 4 days and they were all good.

The Bad
The Food
This is entirely a function of me being a vegetarian. But oh my goodness the food sucked here. I ate bread, cheese, and mushrooms roughly 70% of the time I was in Evora. There was some asparagus, eggs, and orange juice to mix it up too. Even Beijing was better for a vegetarian. I was told in Lisbon that I didn’t know what dishes to ask for, which is highly likely, and the tourist center had a limited number of restaurants. But at the same time, this was still massively frustrating.

The Meh
Roman Site
The Roman sites were a major reason I decided to visit Evora. The guidebooks, and the city talked up the Temple of Diana (or possibly a Roman emperor) and reading up I saw there were Roman baths as well. I was clearly spoiled and conditioned by Rome because I was so unimpressed by what I saw. The temple had a dozen extremely well-preserved columns but after you go “wow, what impressive Corinthian columns” there is literally nothing else to see. The one informational placard had less information than Lonely Planet. The baths were in a municipal building (which was itself unclear) and didn’t even have a placard. It was underwhelming to say the least.

Pretty - but this is literally it.

Elvas
Elvas is a town about an hour from Evora on the Spanish border. As such it is a fortified Renaissance town in a star pattern based on the pictures above. I had a whole round of consternation about the bus schedule but eventually settled on taking an afternoon trip there. And that was more than enough time. Don’t get me wrong – the town’s dry-ditch system, castle, and churches were super cool. An old, now defunct, convent had the best azulejos I saw in Portugal. But it took all of two hours to see everything, which was less than the roundtrip bus ride. I recommend seeing Elvas, but would suggest you do it with independent transport where you can add other sites and the outer forts.

Conclusion
All in all, I’m glad I went to Evora. It was fun and relaxing to be there. But at the same time, if I could do it again, I’d do 3 days there, rather than 4. Nevertheless, its worth more than a day trip and a good destination to visit if you’re interested in history at any period.