Category: Hide Places – Portugal

Évora – A must see in our beautiful Portugal

Hello my Dear Routers !!!

This time we are here to tell you about our 3 nights get away in Évora, Alentejo, Portugal. A rustic get away to get some rest from our stressful jobs.

First of all, how to get there? It’s easy:

    By car: it’s the fastest way. It’s from 1h and 30 min away from Lisbon. If you get the highway it have the cost of 19€ (come and back) because of the tolls.
    By train or bus: it’s cheaper because you don’t have the cost of the gas either the tolls or the cost to rent a car.

In our sweet escape, we stayed in a rustic hotel. A very simple but clean old farm in the middle of nowhere. The perfect place to just hear the birds singing and rest our heads from our busy city’s. It have a swimming pool very cool to get some sun. Hotel Quinta dos Bastos. That’s the name of our hotel.

Now, be aware that it’s not in the middle of the town. If you came by train our bus make sure that you can get to the city. With a bicycle or something. Otherwise you’ll pay like 7€ to a taxi.

Now, places to see in Évora? You got some nice places but you can just get lost in the tiny streets from this city:

Now, a list of places to see besides the little streets:

  • Praça do Giraldo (principal square);
  • Roman Temple of Évora;
  • Bones Chapel (Capela dos Ossos);
  • Sé Catedral from Évora (Principal Cathedral with a good rooftop to see the view);
  • San Francisco Church;
  • Public Garden of Évora;
  • Ageda Cartuxa (wine producers);
  • Aqueduto das Aguas de Prata (old water system)

And do many other places that we didn’t see because we take one of the days to the swimming pool and rest.

Here some pictures:

Other thing that you’ll do a lot in Évora: eat !! Eat a lot in quantity and quality !! A big variety of cheese and something that we call “enchidos” (sausages). You have a lot of Tapas restaurantes and good ones. We will let you a small list of where we’ve eat:

  • Bodeguita D’Avis: Tapas places. Excellent food, good list of wines and good gin tonic. A modern space (have about 4 months of existence) that have already the first place at “Rota das Tapas” (tapas route, onde route of places that serve one tapa and one bear for a small price). The people here are amazing!!!! Definitely a place do return and for you, a must go!
  • Taskafina: a familiar place with local food. Very tasty food and the owner is very kind. Go with time because e serve and his the chef so it can take some time. However, totally worth it !!! No pictures here… Very entertaining by eating !!! But check in the link. 1st in TripAdviser. Good price.
  • Balcão 47: TOP !!! Not so cheap but we’ve drink a good rose wine and eat a mixed table of cheese and “enchidos” and a steak in the stone (made in the table) with some seafood.

Last but not the least, SKYDIVE !!!!! SkyDive in Évora sky’s with Fly4Fun !!!

This is for the tenacious ones !!! Jump from a airplane!!!! It feels like CRAZY !!!! If you are an adrenaline lover you’ll need to do that.

First of all: the team that we’ve chooses Fly4Fun is AMAZING ! We totally recommend them for your first tandem jump. Very nice people, completely worried about our safety, always !!!

Describe, we can’t ! Just do it and see for yourself. It’s an indiscernible feeling!!

We’ve jumped from 4.200 meters and felt like this:

Advice: not cheap. Try to buy earlier and book with time because normally they monthly promotions that worth in the time of payment !! But really: do it !!! At least once in your lifetime !!!

Hope you’ve enjoy the post and that makes you feel like visit Évora in your next visit to Portugal !

Did you know that Évora will be the Capital of Mundial Culture in 2027?! Don’t wait that long xD

If you need some advice: rootingtheworld@hotmail.com

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We will wait for your feedback !!

See you soon !!

PS.: you can check the restaurant and the places to visit mentions in TripAdviser !

Our hide places…

Let’s start this with a very, very, very tiny village in Portugal, in south of it, Alentejo, called Minas de S. Domingos.

Alentejo it’s in the middle, between Lisbon and Algarve. It’s so hot and depopulated that some of our governants call it desert. Whatever, it’s in the district of Beja and it’s easier if you go by car, with the help of GPS. Belive, transportations to this place are very hard to find and can be very dramatic.

So, this village is a village with a history of mining exploration.
In 1858, begins the modern exploration of the mine, on the initiative of the mining company “Mason & Barry” an english company.

The principal objetive was to extract gold, silver and copper. The jobs continued until this materials ended, in 1965. The mine was closed and the mining village went in to decline because the job posts were missing to people.

CURIOSITY: Was the first village to have electric power in Portugal.

For now, it’s a ruined village that we can come and visit and enjoy this
scenario:

After exploring the mines, you can enjoy the river beach of Tapada Grande.

It’s a very beutiful beach with a nice water temperature were you can refresh. You’ll need to know that Alentejo, in the summer, can go up to 45ºC. Be carefull, it’s necessary to hydrate, use fresh clothes and use a good sun protector to avoid sun burns.

So, again to the beach, it has a lifeguard and a snack-bar/restaurant were you can have ligth meals and drink something. TripAdvisor here: River Beach Tapada Grande

Here, you can see some photos:

If you want to enjoy some local food. In the middle of the town, you can have really good food for a very chaep price. We usualy in a local restaurant that, I go since I was a kid with my grandparents and my parents (from my father side, they are from Alentejo so it’s a place that I know very well) it calls Casa de Pasto “A Taberna” (TripAdvisor Here) and eat something called “Cozido de Grão”:

You can see more about this in roteirodeminas. It’s the oficial website of mines in Portugal and you can read it in Portugues, English and Spanish.

Hope that you enjoy this post.

You can see our photos in Instagram: routingtheworld01.

If you need some help, let us know.

Routing the World