Alentejo 2022

A WEEK IN ALENTEJO AND A SHORT VISIT TO LISBON & SINTRA

Évora. We took an Intercity train from Lisbon Oriente to Évora (at times the train clocked 200kmh) and stayed in an apartment for 4 nights, recovering from jet lag. On arrival, we walked from the train station through central Évora and then down Serpa Pinto a short distance to collect the keys for the large and comfortable apartment. We walked over to an urban Pingo Dulce supermarket and picked up supplies. We were still tired from the long journey to Portugal.

While we were in Évora, we rented bicycles for a few days. Jan, a Dutch guy with Sunny Cycling, dropped them off at 9:00am on our first morning. It was a little challenging storing the bikes in the apartment (I brought one of them into the living room) but we managed. The weather forecast was not all that great, so we got rolling quickly. We started with a ride around the city walls, followed by some grocery shopping in the south of the city at both Lidl & Continente. There were a couple of gypsy kids "working" the parking lot at Continente so Sheila watched the bikes at that stop. Dark clouds were moving in quickly and we got home just in time as it rained hard early afternoon. Once the rain stopped, we went for a walk around the old town of Évora. We had eyed a take-away BBQ chicken place earlier that opened at 5:00pm. Of course, the doors opened at 5:00pm but they didn't serve till closer to 7:00pm. I made a couple of trips there to figure that all out, but we did eat roast chicken that night.

Almendres Standing Stones. We rode the rental bikes on a loop that included the Almendres Cromlech (standing stones) and the dolmen of Zambujeiro (burial chamber). The steeper sections were on gravel. The Almendres were cool. There were a few other people there, but you can wander the stones at will, with Évora on the horizon. It was a ride of jet-lag affected 40+km, 300m ascent.

Évora & Ecopista Firstly, I went to a bakery that was open early for delicious bread for sandwiches. At one time, I treated Portuguese bread with disdain, but on this trip came to appreciate it. Even some of the spongy white buns worked well for sandwiches and stayed fresh for use the next day. Then, we pulled the bikes out of the apartment and headed NE through the city to reach the Ecopista (a repurposed old railway bed). Near the city, it was paved but as we went north, it went to dirt and in some less travelled places, it had been washed away and was down to a single muddy track. The old rail line had some nice open views, but jet-lag did not permit us to reach our intended destination of Arrailos. We did manage 50km, with 250m of ascent. We slipped out onto paved roads half way back and there was little traffic. We stopped in at an Inter Marché before reaching our home base. Jan collected the bikes at 5:00pm. We wandered around town that evening.

Évora to Élvas. We checked out of the apartment and walked south and collected a rental car at Guerin. We toured the Alentejo region for the rest of the week. To start, I quickly adapted to the Hyundai gearbox and we set out NE towards Redondo. I was driving a little over the speed limit and collected cars quickly with the Portuguese sometimes sitting "on your bumper", so I was happy to turn off onto a back road. We were trying to think like cyclists and take the back roads. We encountered more farm vehicles than passenger cars on some sections.

Our first stop was the Castle of Valongo, for which we pulled off the road and walked through a gate and up a hill to the deserted castle ruins. It provided a good vantage to survey the agricultural fields of grapes, olives and cork trees.

Further along, we stopped in at Reguengos de Monsaraz. It was a quiet town, but there was a "Backroads" cycling group having refreshments in the central plaza. We paused at a Continente supermarket on the edge of Reguengos for refreshments and lunch. Then we drove to the base of the hill town of Castelo de Monsaraz. It was about the busiest tourist spot of the road trip with about 15 visitor vehicles in the various parking lots. Castelo de Monsaraz was an interesting fortified village with a solid looking castle.

Nearby, we added to our tally of standing stone circles with a small detour to visit Cromeleque do Xerez. Shortly after, we pulled off the road to walk on a nearby Roman bridge at Ribeira de Péga. We drove along quiet roads through beautiful wide open country to Vila Viçosa for a quick look around. We unintentionally drove through the castle grounds to find suitable parking and then walked over to the main square and the Ducal Palace. We drove further north, passed through forgettable Borba and then onto Élvas. It had been a full day by the time we reached Élvas where we checked into our hotel inside the massive fortifications. The São João de Deus Hotel was previously a convent and hospital, and it made a fine character hotel.

We were tired and hungry at nightfall. Rather than wait around for 7:30pm, we opted for a place that served earlier meals. The Restaurant Luis Cobra 9 Euro meals, that included wine, were home style cooking and plenty of it. I never thought of prawns and stewed pork as compatible in the same dish.

Élvas to Castel de Vide. We started the morning with a filling breakfast buffet and then we worked it off on a 8km walk through Élvas up to the nearby Graça Fort and back in the morning. There was some activity in Élvas as we progressed through the old town. We walked through immense city walls, then passed through a maze of stone walls. Vauban would have been envious of the project because the Élvas city walls look formidable. They built two impregnable auxiliary forts on nearby high ground; we walked to one of them, the Graça Fort. I could have seen more of the city walls and the other fort, but we had places to go.

We had further stops in Campo Major and Portalegre in the afternoon before reaching Castel de Vide. We parked in the Campo Major main plaza with municipal gardens and searched out the the chapel of bones on foot. It was closed on that particular day, so we carried on to Portalegre. We first stopped on the southern part of town for groceries and then found parking in the old town. We walked a bit and then went into the Tapestry museum which was more vivid and contemporary than expected. We drove through narrow streets to regain the highway.

Castel de Vide was a little confusing at first, but we parked and then sought out our apartment. While we waited for the check-in, a guided tour group came by and took lots of photos of us on the pedestrian-only street. Our host Eduardo arrived and gave us nice briefing and a welcome food basket Eduardo and his partner had purchased the old property, renovated it and was renting out 3 units. He later passed on all kinds of information via Whatsapp.

Castelo de Vide. We drove to nearby Portagem, looked around the riverfront (Rio Sever) and walked up and back to Marvao on an old Roman road, 7km with 350m ascent. Marvao is a compact fortified town complete with a castle. We drove back to Castelo de Vide, picked up a few groceries at the Pingo Dulce and wandered around town including the castle and synagogue museum (the Jews were once a vibrant part of the community, but were expelled from Portugal in the 16th century).

Castelo de Vide to Évora. Our host, Eduardo, had warned us about the weekly market but we misunderstood where we shouldn't park. We left early but the itinerant market people had already done most of the set-up and our car was in the middle of it. We had one option for escape; we drove over the curb, through the plaza and squeezed between other booths and off the curb to safety. We wished we had taken a few photos, but we didn't. It did feel like a James Bond moment as we somehow pulled it off.

It was our last day with the rental car, we drove west, then south through Flor da Rosa, then west again. I had found a British megalithic website that provided access information and we opened a farm gate and drove up to the Anta do Tapadão (megalithic burial chamber). We returned to Flor da Rosa, drove through Crato and got out of the car in Chão, that has a good looking small castle. Then it was onto the larger market town of Estremoz, We parked outside the city walls and made a 3km walk.

From Estremoz, we drove more back roads and we halted at the Hotel Convento de São Paulo. The hotel had been fully booked for a function so we had been unable to stay there. However, we still wanted to check it out, which we did. We simply strolled past the preoccupied reception and wandered through the hallways in all directions. A little further down the road, we parked and went for another 3km hike at Passadiços da Aldeia da Serra, which had lots of infrastructure but wasn't all that interesting.

We returned to Évora, stopped in at the Decathalon for a trekking pole (for our upcoming coastal hike) and then dropped the rental car off. We stayed in the comfortable Moov Hotel for the night. In a previous life, the Moov was a bullring, which you might determine from the exterior, but there wasn't much evidence of a bullring inside. We didn't have a kitchen so we ate out at Pizzeria l'Italiano which was probably the best restaurant food of our trip. In the morning, we caught an Inter-city train to Sete Rios (Lisbon) where we later took a bus south for the Fisherman’s Trail.

Lisbon was our "hub" city. We went to Lisbon five times, though we didn't see much of the city on the first two visits. It was followed by two half-days and then our last visit offered a full day that permitted a quick trip to Sintra.

Jerónimos Monastery. We arrived in Lisbon in torrential rain from Lagos and the Fisherman's Trail. We caught the metro to Saldhana and went over to the Ibis hotel where we had a reservation. We hoped to leave our bags there, but they allowed us an early check-in. The rain finished while we crawled across the city on the 727 bus. We got to the Jerónimos Monastery just before 3:30pm and it turned out to be excellent timing as most of the daily tourist crowds had left. A portion of the monastery is open to the public, but the courtyard area was worth the effort and price of admission. In the adjacent church we paid homage at the tomb of Vasco da Gama. The structures were funded by Portugal's early exploration and immense profits from the trade routes that circumvented the Venetians.

After the monastery, we worked our way over to the Belém Tower, from which the early explorers set sail. We caught a street car and then transferred onto the 727 back to Saldhana. We tried a Nepali-run Indian restaurant; the food was good but extremely rich. We had problems with our room at the Ibis. The central A/C was turned off and the fan did little to make the room cool, and we didn't sleep that well before taking off for Madeira.

Central Lisbon. Our flight from Madeira arrived before 10:00am. There were no afternoon flights to Tenerife, so we had another night in Lisbon. Once again, the Saldhana Ibis receptionist allowed us an early check-in, then we jumped on bus 736, heading for the "Time Out Market" (an upscale food court). Sheila had read blogs that indicated how busy it gets, but it wasn't when we arrived before noon. But we were hungry as we had arisen early on Madeira. Sheila had an interesting Portuguese salted cod dish, while I wrestled with an ethical dilemma and made the wrong choice: I ordered baked octopus. They are such intelligent creatures and they should be left in the sea, not put on people's plates.

We then walked, what turned out to be 7km through the central area and then up to the upper levels, and finally down again where we ran out of gas about 3:00pm and caught the 736 bus back to Saldhana. There were a lot more tourists than expected for the middle of November; mainly because there was a cruise ship in port. We stopped at a supermarket for hotel room refreshments, went out for a cheap, not particularly good dinner at a fast food Turkish restaurant. We figured out the room ventilation system; we cooled the room down by opening a window and slept better than at the previous visit.

Sintra. We had booked an apartment near the airport for our last two nights in Lisbon to make catching a 5:00am flight home easier. Our incoming flight from Tenerife was an hour late due to poor weather conditions at Lisbon. However, the rain had ended when we made the 1km walk to our new home. Fausto had our flight details and I called him when we were on foot; he was waiting for us and checked us in. We liked the apartment. We walked over to the closest supermarket, another Lidl, for groceries.

We had built in a contingency day and opted for a day trip to Sintra, even with marginal weather conditions. It barely rained, but it was foggy through the morning. We walked half an hour through residential areas to Oriente station and caught a direct train to Sintra. The logistics of getting around Sintra were somewhat confusing. We used the over priced bus system (11.50 Euros) which was a good choice, in the end. We had purchased advance Pena palace tickets and waited in for our 10:00 time slot before entering. It seemed a little busy, but it was nothing compared to later on. We discovered that there were two national holidays in neighbouring Spain and it was a sort of "Golden Week", so Sintra was flooded by Spanish tourists in early December.

The Pena palace was certainly eye catching and the interiors were eclectic, but we sure could have done without the crowds and thick fog. We and another Canadian (Gabriel), exited the palace and walked the huge grounds over to the less known summer residence. My phone gps came in handy while navigating the grounds (we walked about 3 km in all). We then caught the tourist bus 434 to the old town and walked up to the Quinta da Regaleira, another major tourist attraction which was also heaving with Spanish tourists. The grounds are beautiful, with quirky features, the villa looked extravagant however the queue to enter a spiral staircase and tunnel system seemed to extend the length of the gardens. We had enough of the European tourist scene and hoofed our way back to the old town for a 434 bus and hopped on a train leaving for the Oriente station. By the time we got home, the weather had cleared off.

We awoke at 3:00 am and began the full travel day of Lisbon-Frankfurt-Vancouver-Vancouver Island and miraculously arrived early afternoon, with time changes and some tight flight connections that all worked out.