Évora

We decided yesterday that we needed to get away from Lisbon for a bit, mostly to get a break from our rotten Airbnb apartment, but more so for some peace and quiet and a change of pace from the city. After much debate we settled for an overnight stay in Évora, a small place two hours or so east of Lisbon.

A word of advice: allow for several hours online if you’re booking rail tickets in Portugal. Another drama was added to our already large store while we went through frustration after frustration before breaking open a bottle of Jameson to celebrate success despite the worst efforts of the national transport web site.

If that wasn’t enough, we ended up on the wrong train thanks to platform info which fails to update to allow for delays. Fortunately we managed to get off the wrong train and switch to the right one at a station shared by both.

We checked into our (rather swish) hotel, enjoyed a G&T beside the small swimming pool and ventured out for our evening meal. The hotel receptionist told us to expect ‘loads’ of restaurants and pointed out likely places on the map. All well and good, but not that many were open and the one we ate at was disappointing. The highlight of the night was a tiny Asian-food place on the way back to the hotel where Carl had a green tea tiramisu and we both had a rather nice glass of tawny port.

Actually, that’s not right. The highlight was really Évora itself which is a great spot, which perfectly fills the bill in terms of turning the pace down after the rather frenetic streets of Lisbon.