Evora Day 1 - Sevilla to Evora

Today we said goodby to Sevilla sort of sad we didn't plan more time here. Such an interesting city. We will have to return someday. After packing, the first task was to find the rental car. I remembered driving down a steep ramp to an underground cavern with very tight parking spaces. When we left the parking garage, we took an elevator that exited into an interior plaza somewhere and we exited that onto a different street than where we drove the car. Danmed if we could find the elevator.... We found the entrance ramp and dragged the luggage down it for two levels and found the car.

Next problem, navigating out of the rabbit warren of narrow one way alleys to find the highway out of town. The GPS was next to useless in the canyon like streets as it could not get a good signal. Once we emerged on an open square, It settled down and we were on our way.

Our destination for this afternoon was the walled city, Evora, back in Portugal. We were a little early for check in so shortly after crossing the border, we did a detour to the mountain top city and fortress of Monseraz. This had all the makings of a medieval town with very roughly cobbled steep streets and little buildings stacked upon each other.

We had some lunch then took a walk to the fortress and climbed the walls for some beautiful panoramic views.

Leaving there we made our way to Evora and our hotel. Another GPS/driver issued and we missed a turn a block away from the hotel. It took us about 20 minutes to recover as the GPS took us down some of the most narrow cobble streets yet and through most of the old town to get back on course.

The hotel is nice, we have our own terrace overlooking the city. The building dates from the 1400's but has been meticulously renovated and modernized. Again, no elevator so we had to lug our bags up about 5 flights of stairs.

We started out going for a little stroll to the main square to get our bearings. Most of the attractions were closed by now so we just wandered around absorbing the ambience. Chris found a new ride....

Evora has very heavily cobbled streets making walking a bit tough on the feet if you have sandals. There is lots of up and down so we did get some exercise for an hour or so!

We were sort of hungry so we hunted down a restaurant a friend told me about, only six tables and a husband and wife owner/waiter/cook. We were seated in the room with two other english speaking couples and had fun sharing our adventures. The meal was a bit hit and miss for us. We liked the black pork but were disappointed in the expensive leg of lamb which had come highly recommended. The wine was expensive but very good.

We wandered our way home and were pretty well beat by the time we got back to the hotel.